


But At Least We Can Dream

by flamingburningfandomtrash



Series: Everything is Going to Be Okay [2]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Everyone Needs A Hug, F/F, F/M, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, No Smut, Post-Undertale Pacifist Route - "I want to stay with you.", Worried Sans (Undertale)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-25
Updated: 2019-10-02
Packaged: 2020-09-26 10:50:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 23
Words: 61,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20388508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flamingburningfandomtrash/pseuds/flamingburningfandomtrash
Summary: Sans/Reader fluff and angst! And angsty fluff! And romantic fluff!Prepare or tears and happiness and other stuff!You can read this apart from the first work in this series, but I carry a lot of stuff over from that one, so I'd read it first to make sense of some of this.





	1. Human Girls

Finally, you’re back from Colorado- the plane ride home had been kind of painful for you. You want to curl up and fall asleep- your stomach aches, your head is pounding, and your mood is swinging like a pendulum. Sans is worried, but you brush it off- human girl stuff, you declare.  
Oh, and how amazing when you come home! You take a long shower, some Advil, and plop under the covers. All night you curl up in the fetal position so the pain in your stomach is less acute. This is kind of a normal routine, actually. Every once in a while you have a bad couple days like this, and Sans has learned not to question it. He’s never seen you bleed, and luckily you have more physical pain than blood. Well, lucky for him, not for you.  
You wake up the next morning all wet- wait, did you wet yourself? Ew! But after flipping back the covers to check, you jump about a mile- a pool of blood has soaked around your waist and legs, staining the sheets. You turn quickly to see if Sans is okay- he’s sleeping soundly, a little bit of green smoke drifting out of one eye. Oh. So it’s you.

‘Well, this is gonna be quite the wake up call,’ you think. ‘Better to wake him up nicely than let him wake up alone to a puddle of blood.’

“Hey, Sans,” you say nervously, shaking his shoulder. “Please don’t freak out.”  
“wh- *yawn* what is it- -”

He jumps just like you did when you saw it earlier, and starts asking rapid-fire questions.

“are you okay? what happened? do we need to go to a hospital? oh god, are you hurt, did i do this in my sleep-”  
“Hey, I’m fine, I told you not to freak out. I just need to go take a shower.”  
“you aren’t hurt?”  
“No, I’m okay. Really, it’s just human girl stuff.”  
“you’re going to need to explain this a little better than that. is this even YOUR blood?”  
“Yes, this is my blood! I, um, I really don’t want to be the one to explain this. Call Ali or Alphys or something, I’d rather not. Imma go shower.”  
“no way, what happened?”  
“Sans, please, can’t this wait until later?” 

You sigh tiredly, sorry that you’re making him worry like this, but really not wanting to have this conversation.

“How’s this? I’m going to go shower, and if you could put the sheets in the washing machine that would really help. Although, I think I’m going to have to throw these clothes out.”  
“…ok, sweetheart. please, just tell me if something is wrong, i can help.”  
“You know I would tell you, Sans. This is all normal, all of this, I promise.”  
“then why hasn’t it happened before?”  
“Please, please, stop worrying about me! I just need to go shower now, okay?”

You want to take back the words as soon as they come out of your mouth. You know these are all hormone feelings, but that doesn’t make you stop feeling them. You stand and grab new clothes and go into the bathroom to change and shower and regret snapping at him. You never do! This never happens! Why start now?

A little part of you wishes you could go back to yesterday, back to Colorado. The snow! The mountains! The skiing, the snowboarding! The hot chocolates and comedy specials and snuggles! Sans was so fantastic on the slopes; skiing made him nearly crash, but he could snowboard like he’d done it all his life. You were okay at skiing, but you smacked right into a mesh fence when you tried snowboarding- Sans made it look easy. 

You’re startled out of your thoughts when your cramps come back. You double over in the shower, silently cursing Mother Nature. When you come out of the bathroom, Sans is downstairs making toast- he really doesn’t know how to make many foods, seeing as he’s typically too lazy to ever be found doing anything. 

How to make up for earlier? A big, painful part of you doesn’t want to. This part wants to go lie down and eat nothing but chocolate until this all stops. You try hard to listen to the still-normal part of your brain, the little part that tells you to go apologize and eat something healthy, then find something to stop all of this blood from soaking everything again, maybe take a few Advil. You step, still bent over, down the stairs and start sheepishly;

“Hey, I’m really sorry about earlier- I shouldn’t have snapped, you’re just worried about me, and that’s really sweet of you. I- I’m sorry.”

He doesn’t answer at first, and you want to bang your head on the wall- were you really so bad at this that he won’t even respond?! Then he turns, walks over, and helps you down the last few steps and to the couch.

“i know. it’s ok. i’m sorry- i shouldn’t have drilled you like that, you’d tell me if something was wrong.”  
“It’s okay- hug?”  
“hug.”

You hug him as best you can all curled up, and then fall back onto the couch. 

“Do we have to GO places and DO things and SEE people today?”  
“we’re nearly out of that pain medicine stuff, i’ll have to go to the surface for that, so you might have to go over to Paps’ place for a bit.”  
“okay.”

He brings you your piece of toast- your first thought is to ignore it, but then you notice he’s slathered it in that chocolate stuff- Nutella? 

“This looks amazing, thank you so much!”  
“no problem.”  
“You haven’t made any puns since we got back- Paps would be proud.”

You say it challengingly, eyes shining, and he grins. The first real one since all this started. 

“well, we can’t have that. You ready for a skele-ton of puns? ‘cause today is going tibia great day for ‘em.”

You laugh, munching on your chocolatey toast. He sits on the couch next to you and fires off puns, knock-knock jokes and more, and you sit and laugh quietly. When the toast is gone, you down the last few Advil in the bottle. Soon you feel a million times better. 

“You don’t have to go get the Advil yet- I just wanna chill out for a bit. You have any  
good animes in the movie box?”  
“there’s a good one with this yellow alien dude who cuts the moon up and a bunch of kids have to try to kill him. really funny.” (rise, Assassination Classroom fandom)  
“Cool. Let’s put that on, then.”

He does. It really is funny, but you fall asleep after a few episodes. He does too, the lazybones.  
This is okay.  
This is nice, actually.

A little plume of green rises from one of Sans’ shut eyes.

Fin


	2. A Lonely Visitor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Geno!Sans visits for a minute, just to see Papyrus again. You're so lucky in the timeline you're in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the short chapter, I just get little ideas and don't know how to finish them so I just end them. I'm gonna be doing other little works here and there. Enjoy!

“I wanna see the stars. Can we go see the stars?” you ask over breakfast one morning.  
“it’s nine in the morning, there won’t be any out yet.” Sans replies, looking at you inquisitively.  
“No, the ones in the ceiling. I don’t know why, I just feel like seeing the stars is very important.”  
“um, ok. let’s go, then.”

You walk out the front door confidently, and Sans follows, looking confused as ever. When you walk out into the snow, you shiver, but you keep going. Something inside you says that it’s very, very important that you see the stars. VERY important. You start to walk faster. Then you’re running, sprinting- if someone asked what is SO important about this, you wouldn’t be able to answer, but it’s crucial you get there as fast as you can.  
Sans is still locking the front door when he turns and realizes you’re gone. He follows your deep footprints in the snow, wondering what has you so jumpy. When you make it to Waterfall, you look around. The stars are normal, not much looks to have changed at all. But sitting there, in the center of the room, is a very ticked-off looking Sans.  
You freak a little when you see him- one of his eyes is glitching over, he has a huge bleeding slash in his chest, and Paps’ scarf is tied firmly around his neck. No blue hoodie. Surprisingly, this doesn’t seem to bother him. He just looks like an introvert at a party. Annoyed and uncomfortable.

“Are you okay?!” You run and start checking him over, trying to see how you can help. This surprises him-

“oh, heya. i didn’t think anyone was here. who’re you?”  
“Um…wait, you’re one of those alternate universe guys, aren’t you? Are you sure you’re okay? My name’s (y/n).”  
“…i think i’m good. i think i died…i DIED.”

He stands, grinning broader than ever, and pumps his fists in the air-

“I DIED!!”

You look at him, confused at this reaction, and watch as he does a little victory dance like nobody else is here. You tug gently on Paps’ scarf…why does he have it? He jumps and pulls it out of your grip.  
“DON’T."  
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know, but what’s your name? What happened? Why are you here?”  
“oh! um, basically, in the world i come from, everybody’s dead. i gave myself a bunch of determination from Alphys’ place, and now i help all the other alternates of me keep their memories through resets. but… i didn’t think i could die. i thought maybe if i dusted myself i could find my Paps…is he here?!”

You smile sadly. 

“I haven’t seen your Papyrus, but we have ours if you’d like to meet him. Why can’t you die? Well, if you can’t die, how did you die? And why are you here?”  
“i actually don’t know why i’m here, to be honest. i left my Save file, and i died. i didn’t think it would work…i just wanted to get out of the void and…i think it worked.” 

Sans walks in then, looking around for you. You call his name and wave him over. Both Sanses jump when they see their alternate. You explain who he is to Sans, and he nods.

“you’re Geno, ain’tcha?”  
“well, i came from a genocide run, i guess. sure. have you seen my Papyrus anywhere around here?”

Sans looks at him, concerned.

“that why you have his scarf?”  
“…yup. thought if i kicked the bucket i’d find him, but apparently not.”  
“you wanna meet ours?”  
“i dunno. i mean, i do, but i don’t wanna have a breakdown or something. besides, he isn’t even mine, he’s yours.”  
“hey. if my Paps died, i’d give anythin’ to talk to him again. c’mon, it’s not that far a walk. oh, and what’s with your eye?”  
“melted it with determination injections. put some glitches up so people don’t freak. it’s BAD.”  
“can i see?”  
“nope.”

You snort and say,

“Sans, you’re talking to yourself again.”

They both turn to you and laugh. It’s the same laugh, but somehow Geno’s seems rusty, like he hasn’t had a reason to use it in a long time. You realize that you’re starting to call him Geno in your head. You hope he doesn’t mind.

It’s an interesting walk back- when he finds out that you’re ‘THE human’, he gets surly towards you. You have to explain Chara and being possessed, and he seems better after that, even guilty. But he’s still a little wary of you. Sans seems a little ticked by this, but he doesn’t judge. After all, wasn’t he in the same place a year ago?  
You run ahead and knock on Papyrus’ door. He answers quickly, and you pull him inside and explain what you can as fast as possible. 

“Paps, there’s a second Sans coming here in thirty seconds, one that’s REALLY different than ours, and you’re gonna be really confused, but you have to promise to be really nice and not question it. I think he’s gonna cry a little bit, don’t ask.”  
“W-what? What do you mean a second Sans?”

The knock on the door makes you sigh and run to open it. When Paps sees Geno, he flips out and starts worrying over him, seeing if he’s okay, just like you did. Geno just stands there, sad-looking and bewildered. He silently gives Papyrus a hug, blue tears falling. Papyrus hugs him back, but he seems confused as to what in the world is happening.

“…h-heya Paps.”  
“Sans? Are you Sans? Are you okay?”  
“yup.” 

When he pulls away, he turns to Sans.

“don’t ever lose him, kay?”

He smiles sadly up at Papyrus and turns, walking out of the house. You shout and run after him. Papyrus and Sans stay in the doorway, watching.

“Geno, wait? Where are you going?!”

He doesn’t respond.  
You call out again, and he turns to you this time, dust swirling around him, grinning that hollow grin you hate seeing on your Sans.

“imma be ok, think i’m goin’ back to the void again. all of this really happened, by the way. they’ll remember. thank you…sorry i blamed you for all that stuff.”  
“What?”

You sit up in bed, panting, awake. Sans shoots awake a moment later. 

“Did…did that just happen? Did you see that?”  
“yeah. woah…imma go over and see Papyrus real quick. you wanna come?”  
“Mm-hmm.”

But before you can even grab your jacket, there’s a knock on the door. Sans answers, and Papyrus is there, hugging him tightly. You lean against the wall on the stairs and let them hug it out. You can’t imagine a world without Paps in it, a world where Sans is so hurt and lonely that he kills himself. And honestly? You don’t want to. Papyrus speaks first.

“Please don’t die, brother. I love you.”  
“i know, bro. i won’t. i love you, too.”

You want to squeal a little bit- it’s kind of adorable watching them get all brotherly and whatnot, but you know it’s not the time- they both saw a world without the other in it. And you can barely imagine the scale of that kind of pain. After a minute, you pipe up tentatively-

“You guys want hot chocolate?”

Papyrus looks up like he’d forgotten you were here. He holds Sans under an arm and beckons you down the stairs. You come, and he pulls you into a hug, too. You smile softly. Aww. He’s so sweet. 

“Hot chocolate and anime?” he suggests.  
“Definitely. Sans?”  
“yup.” 

You’re grateful for the timeline you’re in, even if it throws everything it has at you- nightmares, death, Chara, scarring emotional trauma.  
Because here, everyone you love is alive.  
And they love you back.

Fin


	3. Could Have Been Worse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chara comes for a visit.  
And sometimes  
The only way to get rid of demons  
Is to hurt the Angels.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took me so long to put this up- (glares at glitch in the no-no corner) SOMEHOW the system didn't let me! But I'm here now, so YAY!  
Thought I'd spice it up a bit, so I break your legs.  
*tentative jazz hands* Yaaaaaay...?

“hey,” he asks, staring at the ceiling, “you remember that one reset?”  
“Which one?”

He asks the question late that night, after neither of you could fall asleep. You’re in bed, yes, and everything should be fine, but for some reason you aren’t tired at all- and neither is he. The air just feels off-putting. Not scary, no, but nerve-wracking all the same. Tense. As if you’re being watched.

“i dunno if you’d remember… you were kinda on and off that time.”  
“What do you mean?”  
“like, you were putting up a fight. after you came out of the Ruins, you were shaking- you looked really scared, but you were covered in dust. so, i knew it musta been a geno run so far. every couple times you blinked, you went back and forth from red to brown- i shoulda known you weren’t acting on your own free will. i think you were trying to fight her off, though. and then you came here, and you acted so weird… you had that fight with Papyrus. and-”

He stops, eyelights going out cold for a minute. You sigh.

“I killed him, didn’t I?”  
“no. YOU didn’t… Chara did. but…after it happened, you sat there in the snow for the longest time, crying. and you were holding his scarf,” he takes a deep breath, trying to stem the flow of his own bad memories. “and you took so long that i came out of the woods. you said, ‘I promise it wasn’t me’, then you reset from the start.”

There’s a pause as you try to remember.

“I don’t remember all of it, only bits and pieces. I was so tired of fighting her off, I wanted to give up. But you know, determination and stuff.”  
“ah, giving up. my favorite pastime.”  
“Lazybones.”  
“oh, my old nickname. such nostalgia.”

You snort and elbow him playfully. Well, at least you managed to air out the old bad memory feeling. Now all’s left to do is get rid of the on-edge feeling.

“I remember a reset where I fell down and landed on top of Flowey.”  
“… who?”  
“Oh, right. You remember the huge angry flower with the spiky vines? Who turned into a goat-god-of-hyperdeath who stole everyone’s souls? Who turned into Asriel?”  
“oh yeah. pfft, how’d you survive landing on top of him?”  
“Well, when all that crazy is below the surface, he’s a little talking flower about a foot tall.”  
“wait, HE was the thing messing with Papyrus!! how did I not know this, goddamn it?!”  
“Yeah. Freaky. But one time, I fell down and he was there in the buttercups, just staring up. And I landed on him, and he DIED.”  
“so?”  
“Remember? He was the thing to break the barrier in the end, before he disappeared! No matter what I did that time, I knew I wouldn’t have to fight him. It…it was such a relief. There wouldn’t be anyone to knock Asgore over when he invited me into his family, no creepy shadows following me in the woods. But I knew…I knew that meant that I had to do a true reset at some point. Start the world over, because I didn’t know how to free it without him. I remember just sitting in the flowers and thinking about everyone individually, thinking about what would happen if I just decided to come live down here. Without all the freeing and stuff.”  
“what’d you do? i mean, you reset, but before that.”  
“I just…sat there. Doin’ nothing. For a really long time.”  
“doin’ me proud, huh?”  
“Heh…yep. And then I reset, and I don’t remember anything after that.”

There’s another pause. Running through your mind are all the memories, little glimpses of genocide routes that you CAN remember. The times you could see what Chara was doing. You think of everything, everything you must have put them through on repeat, how you can’t remember it…what would it be like without resets? Everyone would just die. No second chances. The thought makes you breathe a little off, and you try to push down the panic, take deep breaths.

“hey, you good?”  
“Don’t like not remembering things. You know, ‘cause that means…you know.”  
“yeah. it’s ok. Paps is all good, right? everybody’s ok. they don’t even remember it.”  
“YOU do.”  
“duh. but i forgive ya, sweetheart, you know that.”  
“I wish I could remember it instead of you…so that you wouldn’t have to.”  
“if i couldn’t remember resets, i wouldn’t have remembered you after you died.”

That’s another world you’d rather not imagine. You take deep breaths, in and out. Trying not to let the little gasps and darkness get any closer. He holds your hand, and you say,

“Can we try to remember happy things?”  
“sure. hey, remember when that one guy sorta, like, recognized me in Colorado? he looked so… surprised. wonder what was goin’ on in his head.”  
“Oh yeah! Think he was crazy?”  
“nah. if he was, he was the good kind of crazy.”

(Edit: Toby Fox. That’s who I am trying to reference here. Realizing now it didn’t come out like that. Sorry.)

“Heh. Remember when I nearly hit a tree when I tried snowboarding?”  
“you were god-awful at snowboarding.”  
“Hey, hey, it’s SNOW laughing matter!”  
“man, you beat me to it.”  
“HAHA! Boom!”  
“don’t wake up the whole Underground, it’s like, so late.”

Suddenly, your heart skips. At first you think it might be a camera flash or a laser pointer, but you know the moment you see them. There’s no mistaking the red eyes that hover outside the window. You jump, start shaking slightly. 

“woah, what was that?” he says, looking concerned.  
“I- I could’ve sworn…she was right there!”  
“who?” his voice is edged with tension.  
“You know who, who else would I be freaking out at? Chara, her eyes, she was right…” you feel the old feeling start to take over your soul. You fight it down. “Sans, run.”  
“what?”  
“Run, please run.”  
“why, sweetheart are you-”

You blink, eyes going from red to brown, red to brown, and fall off of the bed, heels pressing hard into your eyes. No, she can’t take you, not when Sans has his guard down! But you go under, her eyes glimmering blood-red through yours.

“Heya, smiley. Remember me?” Chara says in your voice, cocking your head.  
“let her go, right now.”  
“Oh, no! You can’t hurt me now…because the moment you hurt me, I can let go. And when I let go, the only memory she’ll have is you sending an attack through her before she dies.”  
“let her GO!”  
“Come on, Sans! Just kill me! It’s not like I can come back or anything…oh, wait.” She laughs just like you, but evilly, darkly.  
“don’t use her voice like that.”  
“What? Does it make you un-comfort-able? That’s a shame… well, I think I’m gonna go now. Bye!”

When she starts out the door, Sans sends up bone walls to block the exit. She walks straight into them and releases you for a split second. You cry out at the bruises and burns left on your face and arms. You turn to him, one eye covered in a red scorch mark.

“S-sans?”“sweetheart, i’m so sorry-” he starts, but then you shift again.  
“Ha. Weak. There we go, just kill me, Sans. See what it does to her when I leave.”  
“n-no.”  
“Thought that might be the case. You do realize I could just do it myself, right? Walk her out a window, starve her to nothing, even walk to the surface and find some busy street… the possibilities are endless. So just do it fast, and you won’t have that worry, will you?”

She blinks, and you’re back again, eyes fading to brown, trying to fight it. You pant out some words-

“Sans, I can’t do this, what do I do?”  
“i don’t- I don’t know, oh god, she wants me to kill you, I can’t, not while she can just let go!”  
“Just, *pant* hurt me, really bad, she can’t do this much longer either, she’s tired, she can’t come back if you get rid of her, I can take it.”  
“i can’t! no, what if I kill you?”  
“Then, heal, *pant* heal me after, I’m going again.”

He stumbles to the floor, trying to find some way to help you, but your eyes go red. She starts, sounding annoyed.

“She’s gotten stronger, actually. But this is just irritating. She’s still so easy, even after all this time.”  
“LET HER GO!”  
“Mmm, I’ll think on it, huh?”  
“what do you even WANT?”  
“I want to see her in just as much pain as she put me in. Don’t worry, after you finish her, I won’t come back, there are plenty of humans on the surface to mess with.”  
“SWEETHEART, COME BACK, YOU GOTTA FIGHT YOUR WAY OUTTA THIS!”  
“She can’t hear you- it’s not like yelling helps.”  
“ok, ok, c’mon, you can do this. three, two, ONE.”

He swings an arm up and sends bones through your legs. They’re torn and mangled, bleeding. Chara just laughs.

“Oh, I didn’t think you’d actually DO IT! Oh, man, THIS’ll be fun to watch!”

Your eyes shift and fade back to brown, and his attacks disappear. You fall backwards on the ground, pale, shaky, and whimpering with pain. He runs and falls to your side, pressing his hands on your back and legs and staring the magical fire to heal you. It feels so nice, after all the internal fighting and pain, but eventually even he seems too tired to keep going. You still have deep cuts and bruises all over, but they aren’t nearly as bad as before. It stings to move, but at least you can. 

“Hey, it’s okay, don’t burn yourself out, I’m good.” you’re still trying to catch your breath, and you want to scream in pain, but he looks so scared. He protests-  
“no, it’s not, i did this, i’m fixing it.”  
“Sans, you saved me, she would’ve killed me. Stop, you know you’ll just hurt yourself; can we go over to Paps’ place and let him finish it?”  
“are you sure you can go that far?”  
“We can try. Here, help me up.”

You hiss with pain as you try to walk on your just-healed legs, the gashes bleeding and broken bones trying to fully mend.

“Okay, bad idea, bad idea, lemme lay down.” he helps you back onto the bed, where you wince when the sheets touch you.  
“i’m gonna go get him, okay? i’ll only be gone for a second…sweetheart, i’m so sorry, it all happened so fast-”  
“You saved me, bonehead. I would have died… please go get Paps, it hurts.”

You feel weak, pleading for him to help you, but you try not to show it. Not much for that though, seeing how weak you are. He looks like he wants to say something, but he doesn’t. He turns on the spot and vanishes. Once he’s gone, you moan with pain and let the first tears fall. You want to scream into a pillow or something, but moving to grab one is a bad plan, and just plain screaming would scare him. So you groan and let the salty tears catch in your hair.  
When Papyrus sees you, he looks like he might cry, too. His magic doesn’t do well under pressure, you know that much, but he holds himself together. 

“(y/n)?! Are you alright, oh my goodness, let me try!”

He quickly drops down so he isn’t towering over you, and starts to heal you- the magic is delicate, dying quickly and taking a long time to rekindle. When he can’t go any further, you feel better.

“Are you alright?” He asks again. “Do you want to try to get up?”  
“I’m okay for now…but I’ll probably have to; so I can clean up.”  
“Yes, that seems like a good idea. Well, I’m glad you’re okay.”

You sit up, still achy. The burn on your face twinges. You hug him and relax. But then he asks-

“What happened, anyhow?”

Sans looks so guilty and sad- you cut over him when he tries to speak.

“well, i-”  
“Sans didn’t do anything. Chara came and he saved me.”  
“by hurting you.”  
“You had to! She would have- it doesn’t matter. Point is, I’m okay now.”

Papyrus looks and back and forth between the two of you.

“But I thought Chara was gone! I saw her!”  
“Yeah, well, I was gone for a while, too. We both have determination. She just doesn’t use hers for very fun reasons.”  
“I- I almost feel bad for her.” He says, looking at the floor. Sans tenses.  
“why?! she nearly just got (y/n) killed, she killed the both of us over and over again for fun! why would you pity something like her?”  
“Everybody has a little good in them! Everyone! Even her, I know it. She must have a reason for doing this, yes? Maybe she’s supposed to do this? Maybe she doesn’t have a choice. But nobody ever does bad things and feels good afterwards for long. She must feel sorry, yes? So I feel bad for her.”

Sans looks like he wants to argue, but sighs. 

“maybe, bro. maybe.”

You try to stand. The realization hits as the world spins- your blood loss was definitely not healthy. Papyrus quickly supports you, but when you can’t even stand on your own, he picks you up bridal-style. You struggle not to pass out, but you squeeze your eyes shut, wishing that everything would stop revolving. 

“You can fall asleep now. We can do the rest.”  
“You- you sure? Oh, why won’t it stop spinning?”  
“Yes, it will be fine. Really, you need to rest.”  
“Ok…”

Immediately you fall asleep, and Papyrus looks worriedly at Sans. Sans brushes your hair out of your eyes and stares at your softly sleeping form. 

“She will be fine, brother. She is too stubborn not to be.”  
“heh, yup. i know. scary, though. I did this. ME.”  
“You did it to save her, brother. I don’t completely understand what happened, but from the way she was talking, I get the impression this could have been much, much worse. You did a good job, coming to get me when you did.”  
“…thanks, bro.”  
“Now, I can get the carpet and the sheets. But how to clean her off?”

He looks down at all the slippery blood soaking your sweatpants, probably ruining his gloves, and winces. 

“i dunno. that a good idea, though? i don’t want to wake her up, she looks so comfy.”  
“Maybe, but I don’t want her to get infections. I read that warm baths help with achy joints- she’s bound to have some after all of this. What if we ran her a bath? No, that would just make the water disgusting. A shower wouldn’t very well work, in the state she’s in. You’re right, we shouldn’t wake her. We just need to get her out of these. You’ve done that before, right?”  
“once, but she was awake, not unconscious. and she wasn’t covered in blood. can’t we just let her ruin the sheets and wash everything when she wakes up?”  
“I- I don’t want her to get worse. Where would you sleep?”  
“with her.”  
“You’ll get it all over you!”  
“i don’t care. we’re washing everythin’ tomorrow, right? i’ll just throw my stuff in then.”  
“Fine. She probably shouldn’t be alone, anyway. I’m sorry, I’m just scared. Can you at least get her out of these?”

He stops when you shift, trying to get more comfortable.

“She needs to be in bed, brother… fine, we can do this tomorrow. Mettaton will go bananas when he finds out. Is Ali still here…no, she went home, that’s right, so my room is open. I can stay the night, but ONLY tonight. Here-” he sets you carefully under the stained covers. “I’ll go get something for the carpet.”

You blink awake for a minute when he sets you down and you try to sit up. The motion makes everything spin again, and you shut your eyes tight, grabbing fistfuls of sheets. Sans takes off his hoodie and tosses it on the ground, then curls up next to you, murmuring.

“hey, everything’s ok, sweetheart, you can go back to sleep.”  
“Mm-hmm. Why am I all wet?”  
“don’t worry about it, we can fix it tomorrow.”  
“Did I go swimming?”  
“yup. right in the water.” 

So you’re confused, he notices. Maybe a bit more time to rest and heal can fix your blood loss. In the meantime though, he tells you about the fish you swam with and how wonderful the water is.

Fin


	4. Not Being a Criminal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You still have blood loss side affects, but you can kick butt.  
Sans just wants to help, but he nearly gets arrested. 
> 
> (Next chapter will be so romantic and fluffy you'll barf cotton candy and Snickers bars. But today? Angst. Angst and butt-kicking.)

A few days after your run-in with Chara, you’re still recovering from the sudden blood loss- you get woozy if you stand up too long, and sometimes it hurts to breathe, but other than that you feel immensely grateful you even survived at all. This morning, Sans has to go and get groceries from the surface, and you want to tag along.

“i dunno. you sure you’d be okay?”  
“Worst case scenario, I’ll have to sit down on a bench or something and catch my breath. And I wanna come! Pleeeeeeaaaase?”  
“ok, ok. in fact, if you wanna go for me that would be great…”  
“Sans!”  
“yeah, kiddin’. just lazy is all.”  
“I know, I know! C’mon, lazybones, let’s go get you that ketchup.”  
“ok.”

You get in the car first, the little blue Volkswagen that Sans learned how to maneuver to the surface and back. Luckily, since Paps updated his puzzles, there’s a little pathway for it instead of having to swerve through the woods. Your hand wanders absently to the straight, thin burn over your eye. It still twinges, no matter how many times Sans heals it, but every day it fades a little more.  
He hops in the car next, and you pull your hand down, hoping he doesn’t notice- he still thinks all of this is his fault. 

“it still hurt?”

There goes that plan.

“Stings a little, but nothing big. Promise.”  
“i’m-”  
“Don’t you dare say you’re sorry! Nuh-uh. Not your fault, remember?”  
He sighs- “i know. ok, let’s go.”

As you roll out into the nice spring air of the surface, you roll down a window to let it waft through the car. Sans chuckles.

“yeah, i thought it was getting hot in here. oh, or is that just you?”  
“Pfft- don’t try to flatter me, loverboy.”  
“that’s loverbones to you.”  
“Sir-yes-sir, bonehead.”  
“aiight, ’s enough with the nicknames, legendary fartmaster, i’m tryna drive!” He’s laughing really hard, but you know he’s serious.  
He really is probably the worst driver known to monster-kind. You aren’t much better- you have a little experience with those Big Wheels things, and surprisingly, so does he, but that’s about as far as you got when it comes to driving. You can’t even ride a bike- it’s not like your parents got you one. There are a lot of things that you should be able to do that you can’t- swim, bike, drive, you’ve never even drank before. Well, technically you tried a shot at Grillby’s once, but you thought it was gross and nearly puked. It was so strong! The memory makes you smirk- you didn’t exactly get a very conventional childhood.  
You stayed eight for ages in the resets, and then once you were out of the cycle, you learned how to grow up the monster way. Toriel and Papyrus were your home economics teachers, more or less. Cooking, baking, cleaning, sewing, following written instructions. Sans and Alphys were your go-to science nerds. Asgore was good with gardening and social stuff. Metta had fashion sense, and also showed you a lot of musicals and financial stuff- how else would he have gotten so far? Undyne was good at sparring and “intimidation techniques”. You don’t really know why you needed to learn those, but you suppose they might come in handy one day. Tori and Sans taught you essentially every word you could make a pun out of, too. Normal stuff like algebra and reading books by dead people weren’t really in your schedule. You just kind of learned by living. What you needed to learn, you learned from the people you knew were good for it. And you taught them… what?

“Sans?”  
“yup?”  
“You know how I kinda grew up learning from you and the crew and stuff?”  
“yeah, i guess you did. what about it?”  
“Did I teach you guys anything?”

He thinks for a minute. 

“ya taught us plenty of stuff. remember when you wanted to go on the roof and i tossed you up there, ‘cause why not? i learned pretty fast that you shouldn’t do that.”  
“Oh, yeah. Didn’t I just fall off, like, in two seconds?”  
“yup. scared Paps pretty bad.”  
“Hehe. But- that’s not what I meant. I learned stuff, like science and cooking and stuff, but did I teach you guys?”  
“sure. imagine growing up with a dude who runs painful science tests on you and your bro every day. then you’re free, only to find out there’s only so far you can go. ‘cause apparently some humans are trapping ya. soon, some human falls down and goes back and forth from nice to murderous, starting time over and over again. not a great start, huh? but then the human makes everything right. they free everyone, and they get rid of a huge evil flower dude, and then… and then they come to live with you and your bro. and here’s what they teach ya- they show ya there’s hope in the world. there’s a reason NOT to give up. i’d say that’s quite a lot to teach a guy.”

You’re smiling softly, silently. You’d never thought about it like that. You’ve always felt like turning from genocide to kindness meant you didn’t deserve anything your friends gave you. When you glance over at Sans, he’s putting up his typical grinning poker face and watching the road, trying to find a parking spot. But his eyelights are soft, forgiving. As a kid, you always loved when they got like that. They made you feel like all the stuff you did to him could be left behind.  
Still, though, you wish you don’t bring demons and fear wherever you go. They all deserve so much more, not your freaky crap. Your hand drifts to your burn again. This time when it twinges, you don’t wince. You take it. This, right here, is the punishment you deserve for all the panic you bring everyone when things happen to you.  
‘No,’ you think. ‘Don’t think like that, they forgive you for all that.’

“I’m sorry I keep getting myself hurt. It just hurts everyone else.”  
“that’s not your fault. and i’ll say it: it isn’t mine either. we have pretty frickin’ bad luck, that’s all.”  
“Yeah…I feel bad, anyway.”  
“you learn to ignore it.”  
“Thanks, bonehead.”  
“no problem, sweetheart.”

he finally lands a spot a few blocks down from the store- you don’t mind the walk. It’s ab beautiful day out, and the city is alive with noise and motion. For once? The good kind- shop doors opening, people greeting each other, pigeons cooing on streetlights. You’re only a few blocks from the store when the guy shouts-

“Hey, lady?! What’re you doin’ with that freak? C’mon over here, we’ll show ya a good time!”

He laughs after that. He isn’t drunk or high, you can tell- he’s just obnoxious. Sans looks about like he wants to send an attack through him, but he holds back. As they walk closer, you say to Sans in a voice that’s keeping a determined cool-

“Sans, don’t hurt them, don’t say anything. I can do this, let me do this. If they hurt you though- it’s on.”

Before he can respond, the guys are right in your faces, laughing and rolling up shirt sleeves. You say,

“Can we help you? We’re kind of on an errand- HEY!”

One of the guys suddenly strikes out an arm and slugs Sans in the gut. He keels over- you know that must have knocked him down a couple decimals. You stand in front of him before the man can try again. He’s practically spitting on you.

“Move over, sweetheart, let us have him.”

Suddenly a faint memory comes to mind. It was at Undyne’s house and she was telling you all about a surprise attack technique. She called it the Sinnamon Roll.  
“FIRST YOU HAVE TO REALLY CONVINCE YOUR TARGET THAT YOU THINK THAT THEY’RE SUPER HOT. LIKE, FLAMING HOT! ONCE THEY’RE HOOKED, THEN YOU SAY, ‘LEMME TELL YOU A SECRET’. AND YOU LEAN IN, AND YOU MAKE THEM DO IT TOO. THEN- BAM. RIGHT IN THE JAW!”

If only she remembered you enough to see you now.

“Oh, thank you so much for doing this!” you say in your best damsel-in-distress voice. You almost want to stop when you feel Sans tense up behind you, but you don’t. “And might I add, it is such a relief that someone like you would finally come and get rid of this guy. All of you, really! But do you wanna hear a secret?”

You lean in, beckoning for him to do the same. He does, looking smug. You whisper right in his ear-

“He’s the ONLY one allowed to call me sweetheart.”

You swing your fist up and hit him in the jaw, just like Undyne taught you. Not hard enough to break anything, of course, but enough to get your point across. When he brings his hands up, leaving his face unguarded, you get him in the stomach. Finally, when he bends over to protect that, you bring his head into your knee full-force. You step back, shielding Sans with both arms and say it loud enough for the whole block to hear.

“If ANY of you assholes ever mess with him again, I’ll have the authorities come dish this out. Pick on someone your own size.”

They roar and lunge at you. Uh- oh. You were not expecting this. Before you can start to run, Sans grabs your wrist and *blip*. You stumble into the grocery store.

“Hey, are you okay?!”

He’s shaking, still bent over, and you crouch down so you can look him in the eyes. He looks at you and kisses you hard, fast, right there in the store, then laughs so hard you jump.

“that! that was the greatest, oh, that was SO worth it, oh god, i was so scared at the first part, but oh, MAN you wrecked him! oh, you dunked him good, oh MAN!” He’s laughing so hard it’s infectious, and you have to snigger a little bit.

“You shoulda seen his face…geez, that was terrifying, but like… such a rush! Man…I need to lay down…” you realize how shallow and sharp each breath is, even after you should have caught it. You sit on the ground and lean up against a shelf and take deep inhales and exhales, trying to even everything out. The burn on your face stings harder with every passing minute, but you don’t say anything. When Sans sees you, laughing but pale and shaky, his own laughter fades out.

“woah, you good? that can’t have been good for ya.”  
“Nah, I’m good. Just *pant* tired. How’s your HP?”  
“that dude knocked off point 2. i’m fine.”  
“Jerks.”  
“yup. Here, can you move? if we can getcha to a bench or somethin’ in here, i can get the groceries.”  
“Okay, here, can I have a hand?”

He helps you to your feet. You want to sink back down, but you use every last particle of energy in walking like a normal person and not a person with major blood loss and an adrenaline crash. You stumble and have to wrap an arm around his shoulders. He just holds it and keeps going.  
Well, there aren’t any benches, but a woman at the checkout sees the state you’re in and shows you to a stack of crates. She asks persistent questions on how you ended up like this, but Sans just tells her that ‘this happens all the time’ and you just ‘need a minute’. She gives up and walks away. Sans grabs a cart and vanishes for a few minutes, blipping around the huge store and grabbing things. It only takes him a few minutes, and soon he’s back supporting you to the checkout.  
Standing in the doorway are two police officers and the woman from earlier. One is short and angry looking, and the other looks… familiar. When you come out of the corner to stand in line, they walk over and begin in loud, authoritative voices.

“Sir, we would like to ask you a few questions.”

You look over at Sans, confused, but he’s too busy glaring at the checkout woman. He looks back at the cops and sighs.

“can we at least pay first?”  
“I’m afraid not. Would you come over here, please?”

He steps over a bit, still supporting you, and they demand that you stay here while he’s answering. When they find out you can’t stand very well on your own, they let him sit you on an overturned basket. The shorter officer is over drilling Sans, who looks extremely annoyed, and the taller comes to you. You remember where you’ve seen him before. He was that one, Cody, with the British accent from the accident with Caster (It Doesn’t End When You Fall Asleep)! 

“Sir, why are we being questioned?”  
“There was a call for suspicious activity and possible kidnapping. Are you alright? Are you hurt?”  
“Waitwaitwaitwait, you think he kidnapped me?!”  
“So he hasn’t? Could you further explain your condition?”  
“No, of course he hasn’t, and my “condition” isn’t exactly normal. I get shaky after adrenaline rushes, and I got an adrenaline rush.”  
“From what, exactly?”  
“My soulmate over there was almost beaten up by a gang of men half an hour ago, and we had to, uh, run away. I mean, technically we didn’t run, per se, but we got away.”  
“And how?”  
“Well, monster magic, his in particular, can shortcut. He can basically teleport wherever he wants. Like if I were to shout or something, he wouldn’t walk over here, he’d just, be here.”  
“Show me, if you would.”

But you don’t have to- the short officer swung at Sans with the baton previously in his belt loop, and Sans vanished and reappeared behind him. Cody pulls out his taser and starts running over, and you try to stop him.

“Stop, you might hurt him, don’t!”

You stumble to your feet and try to stop him, but Sans just steps back and puts his hands up, grinning. You hear his voice sounding mockingly offended at how their treating him. 

“hey, buddo, i don’t want any trouble. i just wanna go home with my girl. geez, i’m sorry i don’t have a last name, some monsters don’t. i’m not doing anythin’ illegal, promise. look at me- i’m downright pathetic, don’t go around swingin’ your sticks at me.”  
“Back down, Avery, there’s been a misunderstanding. He’s telling the truth.” Cody commands. 

He, apparently Avery, drops his baton to his side. Cody asks him simply-

“Look sir, I don’t know why, but the girl over there has compelled me to believe that you are being honest with us. There is no need for either of us to become hostile in this situation. And really, I’m not sure this will even work on you,” he holds up the taser. “so let’s just calm down, eh Ave? Oi. Avery. Calm down.”  
“He was gettin’ REAL mouthy when he was answerin’ me! We oughta-”  
“He probably has a lot of reasons for bein’ cheeky with you, Ave. Sir, we’re sorry for the misunderstanding. I get the feeling that there was some uncalled for discrimination in play here.”

He sticks out a hand, putting his taser back in his belt. Sans looks suspicious, but he takes a few steps forward and shakes it. Afterwards, he walks over to where you’re leaning against a shelf to support you again. He’s grinning again, but this time you can’t even tell if it’s real or fake. The officers walk past you to get out the door, and the short one slams his baton into Sans’ leg as he passes. The hairline crack shoots up, and you hear the *bam* that means his HP dropped again. Cody doesn’t notice. 

“Are you okay?! here, sit down, you gotta heal yourself.”  
“man, you humans hit hard,” he hisses as he builds the little flame to heal himself. 

An hour later, you’re finally home. He drops the groceries in the entryway and flops on the couch, face first. You snort and flop on top of him. 

“ah mmer wahh oh ‘oppinh ahahn.”  
“What?” You say, laughing, and let him sit up.

“i never wanna go shopping again.”  
“Yeah, I’d be fine if we didn’t. Anime?”  
“anime.”

You give him a little kiss on the skull and pick up the remote, flopping on the couch again, up in the corner. He curls against you so his head is on your lap, arms on his stomach, and falls asleep.

Fin


	5. Dream-Sharing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You share dreams with Sans whilst under brotherly house arrest.  
Oh, the wonders of romantic angsty fluff.  
For once, nobody gets killed.  
Well, not right now.

“Soooooooo boooorrrrrrrred,” you proclaim, pacing from the kitchen to the stairs and back again. Sans is crashed on the couch. 

“we’ve been over this, we can’t leave.”  
“I knoooow. But I’m SOOOOOO BOOORRRED!”

Papyrus has decided to put the two of you under house arrest for a week. He feels bad doing it, but he proclaims that until you learn not to put yourselves in risky situations, you’re staying here. It’s not like there aren’t things to do here- Pap’s place is even fair game if you want more company- but it’s just one of those days. The days where nothing can satisfy except the one thing you really want to do. In your case, it’s go to the surface. And besides, Mettaton, Impact, and Paps are all out visiting Undyne. Sans runs through through the options again.

“we could sleep, watch anime, sleep, eat, play a game, maybe sleep a little.”  
“Sans, you said sleep like, three times!”  
“hmm. sounds like a good idea. wanna take a nap?”  
“Noooooo. I want to go to the surface! Can we sneak out?!”  
“yeah, that’s a good plan,” he says sarcastically. “let’s scare my bro out of his wits and probably get ourselves killed.”  
“I would honestly rather be at risk of demons and humans than be this bored.”  
“oh, ha-ha. wait, i have an idea.”

He sounds serious this time, even a little excited. You stop your endless pacing and flop by him on the couch. 

“This better not involve sleeping, bonehead.”  
“it does, but it won’t feel like it.”  
“That’s cryptic and ominous. Let’s hear it.”  
“ya wanna try sharing dreams?”  
“Didn’t you say you and Paps used to do that? I thought it was only a thing monsters could do.”  
“it’s supposed to be a thing only skeletons can do, but i really dunno at this point what you’re capable of.”  
“What’ll happen if it goes wrong? I mean, no offense to you, but we aren’t exactly the greatest at controlling this type of thing.”  
“we’ll prob’ly just wake up. or maybe you will, i might stay asleep.”  
“Because you want to, or because you will be *cast into the eternal darkness forever*?” you ask, only half-kidding.  
“nah, just tired.”  
“Well, sounds better than dying of boredom. How’s it work?”

He yawns first, stretching out an arm to wrap around your shoulders. Before you can make any remarks, you blip into his bedroom. 

“Was that literally just so you wouldn’t have to get up?”  
“yup.”  
“Fine, okay, I didn’t really want to stand up either. How’s this work?”  
“just fall asleep, first. i can do the rest, it’s a piece’a cake.”  
“Alright. Scoot over, if I’m gonna be asleep I wanna be comfy.”

He obliges, and you press your head on his chest so you can hear his soul thrumming rhythmically. It speeds up a little bit when you get so close, but soon it slows again. You glance up at him, and he’s smiling softly down at you. 

“Bonehead,” you mutter playfully.

It doesn’t take nearly as long as you expected to fall asleep.  
The usual feeling of everything fading into soothing darkness, then a soft pull. It feel like you’re being dragged down a long corridor, and you become more and more aware of your surroundings as you go. Start to feel limbs, the ground underneath your feet. You feel like you’ve woken up.  
You enter the Judgment Hall, right from behind a pillar. Sans is standing at the end. His eyelights are out. He looks like he’s about to dunk a brat. Your first reaction is to stumble backwards- waiting for the attacks from your nightmares to come and tear you apart. But nothing happens. You hear a creak and footsteps behind you, and… YOU walk up behind you? Eight year old you, that is. You- she’s- whoever it is, is covered in dust and red-eyed, holding the knife you always hoped never to see again. So… this is a dream.  
You stare back and forth as he talks to your dusty counterpart. He asks her to reset, to give up on her endless search for L.O.VE. And you step back when the attacks rain down on her, but she dodges like she’s done this a million times before. No, no, this can’t be happening. Right? It feels real. When Sans falls asleep, the child in the striped shirt creeps forward. 

“NO!” you shout shrilly, and try to put yourself in between him and the knife.

But it just glints and phases right through you, slashing a cruel mark across his chest. 

“No, NO, Sans, can you hear me?! Please, don’t die, don’t…”

He doesn’t respond. He just walks away, bleeding and shifting dangerously, and soon he’s just dust on the ground. You try to wake up, try to remind yourself that it’s all a dream, but it feels so solid. So REAL.  
Then another Sans appears where you had mere minutes before. He looks at your back as you sit beside his pile of dust, trying to hold it in your hands, trying not to cry over whatever nightmare this is. His face screws up with worry, and he says,

“heya, sweetheart. i’m here.”

You whip your head around and run over to him, giving him the biggest hug you can manage. You bunch his hoodie in your hands, feel the warm, solid stability of it. Listen to his unbroken soul thrum in his chest.

“I- I thought- I thought that was-”  
“remember, none of this is happening. i’m ok, i’m here, i’ve gotcha.”  
“. . .I love you.”  
“i love you, too, sweetheart.”

You pull yourself together as best you can, taking deep breaths. Just a dream. Just a dream. Sans is fine. But his dust swirling on the floor still makes your heart beat lopsided and wrong. You hear your own cries in the next room as Asgore’s trident goes through the twisted, possessed version of you. Sans murmurs, grounding you.

“you wanna wake up or go somewhere else?”  
“I don’t care. I just want to get out of here.”  
“hey, what’s he doing?”  
“Oh, he killed me. So he’s just putting me in the basement.”

Asgore walks by, tears catching on his furry face, holding your tiny, broken body in his arms. When you die, you know, Chara leaves. So that’s only you there, laying dead. Right. That’s why it matters when you get hurt. Because underneath everything, despite everything, it’s still you. Soon, though, he vanishes and you hear the tell-tale sounds of battle again. So you had reset…right. Sans stares where your broken form had been and then holds your hand. You expect to feel some new place come into being, but nothing happens. He’s just holding on to you.

“I’m here, too, you know. Always.” you say. “This is all over.”  
“i know… that’s just…” he shudders and you squeeze his hand.

Sans shakes himself like it will shake him free of something, then turns. Then there’s the feeling of just being.  
There isn’t hot or cold, rough or smooth, heavy or light. There just IS. Then Sans is there. At the thought of his hoodie, a chill sweeps over the blank space and snow starts to pile in the nothingness. You think of buttercups, so they sprout on the ground, in your hair, out of his pockets. The more you imagine, the more there is. You imagine your old finger back onto your hand, imagine a warm sweater over you. When there’s enough of the snow and mountains, flower and buildings, painted sunset in the background, you speak. 

“Do you do this a lot?”  
“nah. Fun to watch you put it together, though. this is what you thought of, huh? Paps always used to imagine the weirdest combos of places, but this is kinda nice. the flowers won’t come out of my pockets, though. that’s the problem with dream stuff.”  
“Oh, the horror of having flowery pockets.”  
“It could be worse. I could have Flowey in my pockets.”

You reach down while he’s talking and pack together a snowball. With a little *poff* noise, it smacks him and explodes into a million shining pieces. He turns-

“you wanna have a bad time, kid?”  
“Haven’t heard that one in a while. Hit me!”

You dodge one snowball just in time to jump into the path of another. The soft blow makes you slip, sends you face first in the snow. He pelts more and more; they hit you softly and explode, creating a mountain of snow on top of you. He sits on top and grins.

“you submit yet?”  
“Never!”  
“that’s what I thought you’d say.”

You flip over so that you’re face up now- the movement pushes him to his back on the ground and breaks you free from your snowy prison. You jump on top of him and put your hands in the snow on either side of his head; grinning down at his now-blue face.

“Who’s submitting now?”  
“not me.”  
“Yes, you. I’ll make you. I have a secret weapon.”  
“what?”

You fall on him and give him a hug.

“I loooove you.”  
“damn, you’re good.”

You snicker a little, but he’s content to hug you in the snow, your face buried in his neck. You curl in closer when the light chill nips at your nose, and he murmurs,

“why are you humans so soft? i’m tellin’ ya, skin is nice.”  
“Maybe. But you’re so WARM.” 

He laughs. You mutter ‘I win’ under your breath when he kisses your hair. 

“oh, really?”  
“Undoubtedly, bonehead.”  
“no way. i got YOU caught here.”

Hmm. How to best fluster him? It’s the only way he’ll melt long enough for you to escape. You try sliding your fingers across the underside of his collarbone. You pull him closer with your fingertips until your breath is making little puffs right in his neck. Bingo. You smirk smugly at him as he tries to look unruffled- he isn’t doing a great job. You lean forward and whisper-

“I win.” You roll off of him, imagining that you’ve fallen off of a branch into a sea of stars.  
It happens, of course. The stars and moons and planets catch you in their warmth, making you laugh. Sans follows, flying effortlessly by magic, trying to catch up as you jump, flying from comet to comet. The thought that it’s all a dream is pushed far out of your mind- it FEELS real. When you’re tired of running and imagining, you stand on a nebula and wait for him to catch up. It doesn’t take long. After he wraps an arm around your waist, you sigh dreamily and speak.

“Why you don’t just stay here forever is lost on me…” you mutter, staring out into the endless space.  
“it’s just a dream.” he sounds apathetic, but there’s an underlying tone of warning in his voice.  
“We’re literally living a dream, then! Can’t you just do this whenever you want?”  
“not really. it’s kinda nerve-racking.”  
“Why? This place is perfect.”  
“that’s why, right there. i’m always worried if stay too long… i’ll never want to leave. and then I won’t wake up for anything.”  
“I hadn’t thought about it like that. But this is so much better than nightmares, right? If you can just come here whenever you want? Even just at night?”  
“i kinda think of it like drinkin’ or whatever. it’s fine now and then, but every night…i don’t really wanna know what’d happen.”  
“That’s fair…I can see how you’d get a little crazy. Should we leave, then?”  
“nah. i still wanna stay a little longer. have anywhere you wanna go?”  
“I dunno. You have any ideas?”

He thinks, staring off into the dark. 

“mind if i show you somethin’?”  
“Sure. What is it?”  
“my favorite dream when i was younger, after me and Paps moved to Snowdin.”  
“Sounds fun! Let’s go.”

He takes your hand and suddenly you’re in a crowded theatre, in the front row seats. High ceilings, crystal chandeliers, the whole thing. Sans is crashed beside you, feet up on the seat in front of him, grinning. 

“this oughta be good. wonder what material i’m gonna use.”  
“Wait, what?”

A smaller version of Sans with an oversized blue hoodie walks onstage, grinning toothily. You squeal and lean so far forward in your seat you nearly fall off. This is his comedy!! When he was a kid, he wanted to go up in front of a crowd, of course! The crowd roars, and the little Sans waves. Oh, and the PUNS! Skeleton puns, Snowdin puns, dog puns, ketchup puns! By the time he’s done, your face hurts from smiling and you’re struggling not to fall out of your seat. The spotlights go off as he walks offstage, and you scream with applause. Sans claps at himself, laughing at your over-the-top reaction. 

“you like it?”  
“That was HILARIOUS! You were so CUTE! I’m- I’m crying, look at this!” You shake your face and laughter tears fly off in a million directions. “Did you really dream about that all the time?!”  
“yep. every night. little me woulda been happy you liked it so much.”  
“What is this place, anyway? Like, what venue?”  
“think it’s venues from comedy specials all mixed up.”  
“That makes sense. This… this is so much fun! Like, risk-free fun. No falling out of the sky or mafia lords or jerks or demons, just us wandering around. You have any more interesting dreams?”  
“i don’t remember many of my good ones anymore. this one's a favorite, though. you have any?”  
“I- heh, ditto over here. Don’t really remember many good ones. Wait- I have ONE good one. It’s super random, though.”  
“how random we talkin’?”  
“This dream is so friggin’ weird, man. C’mon, I think I know how to go.”

You turn, imagining how the weird little dream starts, grabbing his hand. Suddenly, you’re in a forest with a green mossy floor, under the night sky. Sans looks impressed. 

“Watch-watch-watch, I think I can do it,” you say excitedly. 

You walk to the middle of the clearing. The moss is covered in dew, the stars shine cold in the sky; you smile. And then you screech like a banshee for no apparent reason. Sans jumps, but then you hold your arms out at shoulder level and wait silently. Bats, hundreds and thousands of tiny, black bats, swoop out of the trees and go to hang on your arms. Soon, you have a huge cape of them. Oh god, Sans looks so confused. You turn to him, covered head to toe in the bats, and shout.

“Look! I’m Batman!”  
“w- pfft. did you just do this for the pun? because BAT would make me very proud.”  
“Here, watch this, BATS! FLY!”

They carry you into the sky, and as you turn in circles in the air, the bats vanish, leaving you with long black raven’s wings. You land impressively in front of Sans. 

“geez.”  
“I know, right? So random! But so! Much! FUN! Come on, there’s something cool up here, I wanna show you!”  
“ok. do i hafta scream for some bats or can i just use my goddamn magic?”  
“Dramatic. Yes, you can use magic. Follow me!”

You leap into the air, soaring over the trees. Sans is behind you again, but this time he catches up quickly. 

“Hey, bonehead.”  
“’sup. why are we up here?”  
“Watch.”

You look out over the trees and wait. A few moments pass, and then a little pencil falls into your hand.

“Gimme a word, any word.”  
“uh- ketchup.”

You scribble ‘ketchup’ in the air in front of you, and suddenly the forest glows. Streams of fireflies explode into light, and shift around until they spell out the word ‘ketchup’ in your handwriting.  
(Then you write ‘to my level’ afterwards, making him laugh.)

“This is one of my favorites because of how poetic it is.”  
“i never knew you had a poetic side.”  
“Well,” you say, blushing, “It’s stupid, sorry, but whatever! Just fly straight up. Don’t worry, okay, it’ll be fine. Don’t freak out.”  
“it’s not stupid, it’s cool. also, why would I freak out?”  
“Just fly up! Okay, ready?”

You soar up and up, the air getting sweeter and thinner and colder, until the world seems to turn. Suddenly you aren’t flying into the sky, you’re plummeting into it. You shout the lines of your favorite poem as you fall.

“As I fall into the open sky!”

The stars are swirling, beating out a rhythm that makes you want to shake off your wings and dance.

“The fire can’t ignore me!”

You fall through a world of purple and black, slowing down. Your voice quiets.

“I fall and fall, I will not cry.”

Your eyes crack open, and you murmur.

“The nebulae will adore me.”

You flinch, but soon your eyes adjust. Wrapped in Sans’ protective arms, listen to the steady thrum of his magic again. Bleary eyed, you sit up a little, but he’s still asleep. Why’d you wake up? Normally you landed… where did you land, anyway? You shake his shoulder a little, paranoid he might be in some sort of trouble. His eyelids slide open then, and you relax. 

“why’d you wake up?”  
“I didn’t- I mean, I didn’t mean to. It just happened.”  
“’s okay, we probably need lunch anyway.”  
“Thanks, by the way, for all that.”  
“it was fun. maybe we can try again sometime. goes by fast, huh?”  
“Yeah, it did. *yawn* Not sure I wanna get up yet.”  
“have you come over to the lazy side?”  
“Not quite, bonehead. Just need some rest.”

You sigh contentedly and lay back down all the way. His eye starts to glow a light green color, and you smile.

“Happy, huh?”  
“yup.”  
“C’mon bonehead, I wanna sleep.”  
“ah, those are sans-tactic words to hear.”  
“Pfft.”

You kiss him on the skull and snuggle in. Sans rubs your back gently, absently. Lunch can wait. For now you’re fine curled up napping with the best soulmate a girl could ask for.

Fin.


	6. Kisses and Monsters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> BOOM! FEMINISM!  
BOOM! ANGST!  
BOOM! ROMANCE!  
BOOM! MOTIVATION!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO!!! DANG!! MOTIVATED!!!  
THAT MAY JUST BE THE GALLON OF CHOCOLATE MILK TALKING, BUT WHO HONESTLY CARES?!  
NOBODY!  
two notes:  
First: the kissing scene is as close to smut as I can get before I get uncomfortable and back off. Sorry-not-sorry.  
Second: shoutout to Lady Yashacat for showing up in the Kudos of all of my work. I don't know if anyone even reads the notes, but like, thanks dawg. HEY, IF YOU READ THE NOTES WRITE 'QWERTY' IN THE COMMENTS!!! k bye

“God, I hate this.”

You toss the women’s magazine away from you and huff. Sans looks up from his science documentary.

“what? is it old?”  
“No, modern. Which is worse.”  
“what?”

Mettaton had brought the magazines from the surface in the hopes that you would be less bored while you’re under “house arrest” with Sans. Tomorrow you’ll finally be free from the brotherly restraint, but geez. This is not what entertainment looks like. If this is what society thinks women should be like, you’re going to have a frickin’ seizure. You glare across the table at the magazine and start your rant.

“Well, the first page is all about having “perfect skin”, then there’s an article about how “oh yeah, we love being fat, everyone accepts that” but all their pictures of supposedly fat girls are maybe XL at the very most. That isn’t fair! Then there’s just this endless chapter about stupid things like sex toys and kissing methods, which is gross. I thought there would be SOMETHING good in here, like a list of good books to read or something! And there are NO mentions of monsters in here anywhere, just- AGH!”

You stare daggers at it, and Sans looks amused. 

“so…its no fun-imist?”  
“I swear to god, Sans.”  
“ok, ok. calm down. humans are weird. no offense.”  
“Yeah, I know. It’s funny actually; I don’t even feel like a human much anymore. I’m just another monster down here. It’s so much better than all of,” you wave an arm in the direction of the magazine, “THIS.”  
“it’s ok. like i said- humans are weird.”

You sit and stare at it for a minute longer, then reach over and pick it up again. As you flip through the pages, you feel a little self conscious. They all look so flawless in the pictures. Thin, acne-free, perfect clothes. No matter the type of hair, it’s perfectly styled and prepped. Of course, you know they can’t always look like this…but you feel bad all the same. You sit your forehead on the table and stare down at your legs. You’d never thought about it much- is it bad that you aren’t tall? Is it because you haven’t been eating the right stuff, or is that the way you’re made? Would a diet be a good idea? 

‘Stop thinking that, that’s stupid. It’s just a stupid magazine. And if I’m not even really human, what does it matter that I don’t look like them? Stupid magazine. Stupid models… stupid being short.’   
you think on and on until you realize you’re just beating yourself up. You sigh and go upstairs, locking yourself in the bathroom. You don’t really know how long you stare in the mirror before you hear the knock on the door.

“hey, you good? you’ve been in there a while, somethin’ wrong?”  
“I’m fine,” you say, opening the door. “Just tired.”

He puts his hands in his pockets and looks you up and down. 

“for the record, i think you’re the prettiest girl a monster could ask for.”

That breaks you a little bit, and you sniff. He comes forward and hugs you, letting your eyes prick with tears and rubbing your back.

“you wanna go over to Hotland and burn ‘em tomorrow?”  
“Yes.”

He chuckles and plants a kiss in your hair.

“i’ll even light one up with a blaster if you want. but until then, how ‘bout a movie?”  
“um, I think we have Big Hero Six on DVD.”  
“perfect. c’mon.”

You follow him down the hall. How can he always make you feel better like this? It’s like magic. He snags the DVD out of the hall closet on the way down. Before he can shut the door, you hesitate.

“Wait… what is that?”  
“what, this? is the dvd? like you said, for the movie?”  
“Nonono, this- oh god.”

You reach into the back of the closet and grab the old sweater, then shout, dropping it. It’s your old blue and purple sweater…but the front is stained a cloudy white by dust. MONSTER dust.You stumble backwards- what- who WAS that? How long has it been there?! How is it even here?! Why is it still like this? Wouldn’t it have reset with you?! As you press yourself against the far wall, trying to get far, far away from it, you look at Sans. He’s a few steps away from it, too, looking rattled.

“did YOU put this here?”  
“I- no, I thought it was you! Oh god, oh god, why is it here?!”  
“it- it’s just a shirt. man, that’s sick, though. i wonder…”

He doesn’t complete the thought, but what he didn’t say hangs in the air. ‘I wonder who it was.’ You wonder, too, but at the same time, you really don’t want to know.   
You can feel your lungs tightening, breaths starting to come shorter and shorter. The darkness pressing in like water, blocking out all noise but your own panicky gasps. No point in trying to push it down now that it’s on top of you, beating you down to pieces. Breaking you like glass. You feel, vaguely, as your knees pull up to your chest and your arms come up over your head, like someone is physically trying to hurt you. At this point, what originally scared you isn’t important- all that you know now are the pounding waves of fear that rip at you relentlessly.   
Eventually, though, they quiet. You’re aware of Sans’ gentle hands holding onto yours, trying to ground you, trying to reassure you that it’s okay. You look up, hesitantly pulling your arms down off of your head. 

“hey, it’s ok, it’s ok, i’m here. i gotcha. i’m ok. you’re ok.”

You realize that you must have been crying- your wet face and bleary eyes tell you so. You swipe at them with your hoodie sleeves, trying to catch your breath. When you finally meet his eyes, he brings you into a tight hug.

“i’ve gotcha. i’ve gotcha, sweetheart.”  
“I k-know.”

You let go of his hands and hold his face gently. Looking into the vast expanse of darkness in his eyesockets, wanting to cry again. It feels good, to be honest. All this crying. Like you’re unbottling something you’ve held in for a really long time. 

“I’m back,” you say, smiling a little.  
“there’s my girl,” he replies, eyesockets crinkling up a little in relief.  
“Hey…c-can we burn the shirt tomorrow, too?”  
“sure,” he says, “burning bad things feels good, doesn’t it?”  
“No, not like that… like, do it to give whoever it was a proper send-off.”

He looks at you carefully, as if he wants to find a way to dive into your soul and fix all your pain for you. Then he hugs you again.

“you’re amazing, you know that, right?”  
“Why?”  
“i woulda just burned it for bad memories’ sake. you’re doing it because you care. That’s a pretty cool thing to do, sweetheart.”  
“I dunno about that…but thank you. C-Can we watch the movie now? And for god’s sake, can we put that thing in a box or something?”

He magics it into a box in the hall closet and shuts it firmly. Then he helps you to your feet and walks down the stairs, one hand holding yours. You sigh, still sniffing. To think that a minute ago you were worried that you were fat. There are much worse things to be worried about. You stop cold, rigid.

“Did Chara put it there?”  
“what? i- no, she can’t have.”  
“Do you think she…she took me or something? Like, she possessed me and made me put it there? But…no, I’d have the gap in my memory. Why can’t I catch a break?”  
“you aren’t being possessed. trust me when i say this- i’d know.”

He helps you to the couch. You sigh, tilting your face up to the ceiling.

“Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. I’m just worrying over nothing, huh? Man, sometimes I wish my biggest problems were acne and using the right goddamn sex toy.”

You snicker after that- it just slips out. His face is screwed up against laughter, too, you can see it. You laugh a bit harder, then. Hilarious, the idea of having some shallow, normal life. He does too, and soon he’s doubled over, nearly falling off the couch in laughter. You giggle a lot, but you try to stay quiet so you can hear his laughter over yours. It feels good to listen to.   
He sits up, wiping laughter tears out of his eye sockets and wrapping an arm around your shoulders.

“i- heheheh, i can’t even imagine.”  
“Thank god for that.”

You smile softly, eyes going closed in perfect contentedness. He slides an arm around your waist, pulling you closer, then asks-

“hey, can i kiss you? i mean, do you mind?”

Oh, he’s so awesome. You lean forward and kiss him first. It’s so deep, and you fall into it easily. The world around you vanishes- there isn’t anything but his little cocoon of warmth, the gentle thrumming of his soul, and his smiles when you come up for air. At one point, his hands slide under your shirt and travel up and down your back, pulling you as close as he can. He peppers kisses down your face, burying his face in the nape of your neck for a minute. You gasp out the words, flustered and oh, so happy.

“How the heck are you so good at this?”  
“well, you are great inspiration.”

You grin, the biggest you can remember smiling in a while. Or maybe it’s just the lack of smiles over the past few hours. Either way, the movie is soon forgotten as you snuggle up to him and let him plant kisses in your hair.

“wanna go upstairs to sleep, or are you good here?”  
“Nah, upstairs *yawn*. Don’t need an achy back to chuck things in lava tomorrow.”  
“heh, good idea.”

You turn to stand, but he picks you up and carries you instead. 

“Chivalry isn’t dead, huh?”  
“heh. not to-knight.”

It takes you a minute to catch the pun, but when you do, you laugh out loud. Sans sets you carefully on the bed and curls up to you. You take your hoodie off to sleep, but he doesn’t, as per usual. 

“night, sweetheart.”  
“Good night, my bonehead.”

Fin


	7. Broken

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I TRIED TO WRITE HAPPY BUT I DIDN'T. SO, WHOOPS. NEXT CHAPTER IS HALLOWEEN! SPOOPY TIME YO!  
I WILL WRITE HAPPY!  
I CAN DO THIS!  
DETERMI-FRICKIN-NATION

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today's shoutout goes to RiverSong456. I read your stuff, dude! Love the Harry Potter/UT crossover- I don't even know how to do that one!   
Lol- literally nobody reads the notes anymore. 
> 
> "I could say whatever I want right now! I'm gonna get an ant tattoo!"  
~Barry Benson, the Bee Movie

“Okay, on the count of three. One, two, three.”

His blue magic lowers the dust covered shirt into the lava. You sit on the edge, sweating, watching it catch fire. You’d already tossed the magazines in, cursing humanity as you did so. But when he opened the box, your mood had sobered significantly. You watch it settle and sink and burn, and your eyes prick with tears.   
Sans lets go and sits by you, wrapping a protective arm around your shoulders. You try to choke out a few words;

“Whoever you were…I’m sorry. I promise it wasn’t me. I wasn’t really there, I swear.”  
“yeah. sorry.”

Alphys walks up behind you, asking what’s happening. Undyne is with her. You can’t explain-

“I- there’s- we burned an old shirt…it, um, I did some stuff…when I was younger. Well, no. It wasn’t me, I swear,” you swipe at your stinging eyes and stare at the ground. Sans gives you a comforting squeeze. 

“s’ok, sweetheart. just an old shirt.”  
“Hey, you guys good? Why’d you burn it if it was so important?! Normally I’d try to get it, but I think I’d turn into sushi! I’m out, it is so HOT HERE!”

She beckons to Alphys, but she’s staring at the shirt as it smoulders in the lava. She looks conflicted, then she looks down at her claws.

“Sorry w-we, er, b-b-bothered you guys. S-sorry if it was imp-p-portant.”  
“C’mon, Alphys. Sorry, punks! For…whatever reason!” Undyne grabs her hand and they walk away.

You know she’s trying her best, but you can’t help but feel a little hurt by all of Undyne’s yelling. Probably all this heat messing with your head. You’re used to cold and wanting warmth- but at this point you would rather die than ask for Sans’ hoodie. He left it at the house anyway. He isn’t sweating, but he looks uncomfortable. When the flame on the shirt dies, you stand. 

“There’s a water cooler down this way. I dunno if you need any, but I definitely do.”  
“sure. i just need some to dump on my head, tibia honest.”  
“That was pathetic, dude. WATER you doing?”  
“man, you’re getting better at those every day.”  
“Swag. Geez, what was that. I need some water. C’mon, bonehead.”

You swipe the hot pebbles off of your shorts and keep walking. You know these dang shorts are too short. But it’s not like you have need for any in Snowdin- with an unexpected trip to Hotland like this, you had to dig out an old pair at the back of the closet. By the time you realized they were too small, it was time to leave. Not to mention the tight t-shirt. You felt like a crappy remake of the girls from the magazines you’d just chucked. Your t-shirt wasn’t short on purpose. Your shorts aren’t short on purpose. They just make you so much more uncomfortable than you’d normally like. You find your arms unconsciously wrapping around your front, trying to block the skin showing. Of course, Sans tries to be nice about it. Keyword: tries. It’s more teasing than anything else.

“hey, sweetheart, did you sit on a pile of sugar?”  
“I swear to god, Sans, if you make one more ‘sweet ass’ joke I’m pushing you in the dang lava.”  
“ok! ok, gotcha. sorry. don’t get this opportunity much.”  
“Yeah, I know. It feels so weird. I need better summer clothes for stuff like this, geez… where’s the dang water cooler?”  
“dunno. oh NO.”

You look the direction he is and start to laugh. Mettaton is out, filming his cooking show, this time with Monster Kid. Poor kid’s just about as oblivious as you had been, but luckily this time all the teasing about him being the secret ingredient are just that: teases. You laugh harder and run over. When Mettaton sees you, he grins and beckons you forward. Sans watches in mock horror as you jump in the makeshift kitchen and start to act. Posing, laughing, making jokes with Metta. He’s bouncing off your personality perfectly, asking the right questions and through it all, still conducting the show. At one point, he suggests to his viewers that it’s much faster to put the cookies in for 4000 degrees for 20 seconds instead of the normal 400 for 20 minutes. (That’s not even the right math!) You look worried, but you know he doesn’t do well with that on camera, so you brush it off.

“He’s kidding! Wouldn’t wanna burn your house to Hotland, ammiright?”  
“Oh really, darling? Let’s test your theory, yes? You put yours in at the normal time, and I’ll do it my way. Viewers, feel free to try this at home! But make sure to get all children-” he picks up Monster Kid, and you sigh with relief- at least he was keeping somebody safe. But then he puts him on a stool- “ready for the most delicious cookies they shall ever have!”

Still nervous, you put yours in and wait. Mettaton puts his in, and you watch them turn black almost immediately.   
By the count of seven, they’re on fire. When he hits twelve, the smoke alarm goes off. Eighteen and you step away from the oven. At nineteen, it explodes. You grab Monster Kid and hug him close to your chest to shield him from any debris. Luckily, the explosion is mostly cookies, but when the front of the oven bursts, a small shard of glass cuts your back and gets stuck, making you shout. Mettaton stays right where he was- since he’s a robot, one arm falls off, but he’s otherwise unharmed. You look down at the kid, worried he’s gonna be scared or hurt or something. Nope.

“Hey, you okay?”  
“I’m okay! That was so cool! I hafta go tell mom!! Bye, Mister Mettaton! Bye, Miss Human! Thank you for not letting me explode!”

He runs off, tripping on his face as he goes. You hear Metta make a hurried goodbye to the camera, then he runs over to you.

“Oh dear, darling, I didn’t mean to! Oh, goodness, you have a lot of cookie in your hair, are you alright?”  
“I’m okay. Think something hit my back, though, that kinda hurts. I’m good. Do you know where Sans is?”

You hear the familiar shuffle of slippers before anything, then you grin painfully up at Sans’ face. He looks so worried, poor guy.

“Don’t worry, I’m good, ‘s nothing bad. Think there’s something in my back, though, that’s killing me. Not literally!” you add hurriedly. Sans sighs with relief and looks at your back, then winces.

“i can help you out, but it’s gonna hurt a lot for a sec.”  
“What is it, anyway?”  
“oven glass, i think. i gotta pull it out if i’m gonna heal it,” he sits down by you.   
You want to get out of this crouching position, but any movement makes you want to scream. You wait for him to give you some sort of countdown, but then you cry out loud in pain- he pulls it suddenly, warning-less, to get this over with. It comes out, luckily, but without the sort of plug, you feel your back wet with blood. You search for something, anything to hold on to, and you feel Mettaton’s hands holding yours securely. You squeeze them hard- it probably hurt him, actually. Sooner than you thought, Sans is done healing, and he lets you slump down, panting.

“Geez, that stung. Thanks. I’m all good, no big deal, gimme a minute.”  
“however long you need, sweetheart. and YOU.”

He turns on Mettaton and stands. Sans barely comes up to his chest level, but the tall robot stands down immediately. 

“I swear, darling, I wasn’t anticipating an explosion of such velocity!”  
“so you knew there would be an explosion? and you had a kid on set? what part of that sounds like a good idea?”  
“I know, it was rash of me, I’m quite sorry.”  
“look. i know you’re Paps’ soulmate, and i respect you for makin’ him happy, ok? don’t screw that up. and i SWEAR, if you do any shit like this to him, i’ll…no threats. right. don’t try anything like this again, with anyone. where is he, anyway? i don’t want him tryin’ this at your house.”  
“Erm- he’s home watching this. It was, I’m afraid to say, a live episode. Oh, dear…do you think he followed along?!”

You stand, unable to shake the ache in your back, and speak to Sans. His eyelights are pinpricks of anxiety.

“You go, shortcut without us, you’ll get farther. We’ll catch up.”  
“ok. see ya in a minute, sweetheart.”

He pops into nothingness, and you start walking briskly towards the path home. Mettaton grabs you under his one remaining arm and extends his legs out to a a length you’ve never seen before. Then he runs. You fly through Hotland, dash through Waterfall, and before you know it, you’ve hit Snowdin. He puts you down, panting and shaking.

“Nearly out of batteries, darling. I need to get to a power outlet or I’ll shut down.”  
“Um, oh no, we have to keep going!”  
“I know, I know, you run in there and find out how he is, then bring him back here so he can carry me by magic if I shut down on the way.”  
“And if he’s hurt?!”  
“He isn’t…no, he isn’t. Sans will have healed him by now if he was. Run along now, and come back quick, it’s dreadfully cold here.”  
“O-okay, Metta. Be back in a sec.”

You run through the woods, past the puzzles, the only thing keeping you warm is the puddle of blood soaked into your shirt. You run past shops and signs and the big Gyftmas tree until you hit the house. Sitting in the front are Sans and Papyrus. Sans looks relieved, but Papyrus looks put out- he has an almost comical smoke-explosion mark on his front, but no apparent injuries. 

“Oh, geez, *pant* you’re okay,” you say, bending over, hands on knees, panting.  
“Yes, I’m fine, (y/n). I apologize that I’ve scared everyone so badly- though I ruined the cookies. Is Mettaton here yet?”  
“He’s- *pant* -in the woods- *pant* -running out of battery,- *pant* -waiting on you.”

Sans comes over and gets you to sit down. You flop on your back in the snow, panting heavily, shivering with cold. The sweat and adrenaline rush help you to ignore this, however. You stand, trying to walk back into the woods, but Paps picks you up and sets you down on the ground, stopping you.

“I can get him myself, don’t worry- you need some rest. Are you alright?! Are you hurt, goodness, your back!”  
“This?” You pat the blood stained shirt, still trying to catch your breath. “Justa scratch, no biggie, go help Metta before he freezes out there.”  
“Unfortunately, I am inclined not to believe that this is ‘just a scratch’. Sans, please get her cleaned up, I’ll go get Metta. I hope you know that this is the reason I had you stay in the house for a week.”  
“it was Metta’s fault, we didn’t do anything!” he shouts indignantly.

Papyrus sighs.

“I’m sorry- I just hate it when you get hurt, brother. Both of you. But I’ll talk to him.”

He jogs briskly off into the woods and leaves you with Sans. Finally, you catch your breath- the adrenaline pumping through you crashes and leaves you feeling freezing and tired. You stand, holding his hand. You step up the porch stairs into your house and flop face first on the couch. Blood and cleaning and warmth can wait- so tired. So very tired. Sans stays standing, looking down at you.

“you need to change. you’re freezing and you have blood all over your back.”  
“I’m chilled to the bone?” you mumble back, not moving from the couch. He doesn’t laugh, for once.  
“seriously. you need to change so you can get some sleep.”  
“I’m like a bike, I’m two-tired. Haha,” you stop when you start to cough. 

Is this how he feels all the time? Just puns and tiredness and pain? You finally push up and sit forward so you don’t ruin the couch with your bloody shirt. You stand, half-crawling to the stairs, a wave of nausea hitting you.

“I’m gonna throw up.” you start to cough harder, little spurts of red coming out on your shirt. You’re trying not to hack anything up on the floor.

He picks you up in his arms and quickly carries you up the stairs- once in the bathroom you heave into the toilet. He holds your hair back and murmurs comfortingly.

“there we go. let it all out. it’s ok. it’s ok.”

When you’re finally done, he sits with you on the floor and holds you securely in his arms. You lean into them, sick and tired and messy, and not really caring.

“Sorry,” you sigh.  
“hey. gives me an excuse to hold ya, huh?”  
“Heh. Yeah. Do you mind if I go to sleep?”  
“nope.”

You fall asleep- the rest of the day happens without you. Sans stays there, your freezing form pressed into his chest, your legs folded on the cold tile floor. When you shift uncomfortably, he carries you into the bedroom and lets you fall asleep again by yourself.   
Mettaton, besides the cold, is fine, though Papyrus did have to carry him part of the way home when he powered off. Their kitchen is practically a crime scene from an episode of Tom and Jerry. Black scorch marks all over the walls, save one that has a perfect outline of Paps’ surprised figure. The cookies, when touched, turn into little piles of ashes. That made Mettaton laugh.   
But Sans, back at home, sits on the couch, head in his hands, trying to find out how he can possibly protect both you and his brother when so much is happening all the time. You’re so DELICATE. Humans always were. Especially the innocent ones- so easily shattered.   
Papyrus knocks and Sans lets him in, trying to wipe his leaking eyes with his hoodie sleeves. Papyrus just picks him up into a hug and lets him choke on his tears. 

“what am i gonna DO?”  
“She’s strong. She can do this. So can I, brother. We can do this.”  
“but-”  
“No ‘but’s. We’re here, Sans. It’s hard to believe- but we aren’t dying on you anytime soon.”  
“sorry, bro.”  
“I’m sorry, too. How is she?”  
“she threw up. she’s asleep now.”  
“And her wound? Has she showered at all?”  
“s’fine. she hasn’t showered or nothin’.”  
“It is just human that she’s like this. It’s just the way she’s built, Sans. That doesn’t mean she’s helpless- didn’t you tell me she beat up that human who harmed you last week?”  
“heh. yeah. she’s so awesome.”  
“Is she as cool as “The Great Papyrus”?”

Sans looks up at his brother and grins at the old nickname.

“not AS cool, but pretty dang close, bro.”  
“I know. Would you like some of the cookies I made? They’re just piles of ashes, but they aren’t nearly as bad as they could’ve been.”  
“pfft. i’m ok.”   
“If you insist!”

Papyrus sets his brother back down and looks him in the eyes, sobering again. 

“I’m here if you ever need to talk, brother. I haven’t forgotten you.”  
“i know, bro. heya, if you don’t have to leave or somethin’, can you help me out?”

It goes unspoken, but the question means a lot. Sans never asked for help, not from anyone- and especially not from Papyrus. So of course, the taller brother readily agrees-

“Of course, brother! With what?”  
“i honestly don’t know if she’s ok. after she threw up, she fell asleep, but- but she coughed up a lot of blood, bro. a LOT. i don’t know what it is, but i know it ain’t normal. if i go calling Alphys and worrying about her, she’ll just pretend she’s okay and… i know that hurts. can you check on her or somethin’? i know you aren’t a doctor or anythin’, but back when we were with… when we were younger, you were always better at the healing stuff.”  
“Sure. She is in your room, yes?”  
“yup.”

Paps climbs the stairs and inspects you carefully- your breathing is definitely off. When he checks your stats, he notices how low you are on HP. Spooling his magic out carefully, he gives you a little push on your ribcage. You cough up blood again- this time on the sheets. A few times more, his eyes looking more concerned with each push, and finally, with a whimper, you cough up a shard of glass. The oven piece must have broken, one part pushed further down with Sans’ healing.

“Oh, goodness.” He holds up the tiny, bloody piece, and beckons Sans closer.  
“what is that?”  
“She coughed this up… it must have punctured one of her lungs, those things humans use to breathe… oh, goodness.”  
“well, what’s it mean?! is she okay?”  
“It means she can only breathe half as much as she should be right now. If we heal her at the same time, as deep as possible, we should be able to fix it, but it will take a minute. And I don’t even know if it will work.”

Sans scrambles onto the bed, putting his hands on either side of your head, and starting his fire. Papyrus starts his, too, gloved hands pressed on your back. You fall into a deeper sleep when the comforting warmth crashes over you. You cough up more little slivers of glass, mewling quietly with pain each time. But soon, all of the blood and glass are out of your lungs and the holes are mended. You blink awake when they finish.

“Mm?”  
“you ok?”  
“yeah… why’d you stop, so warm…”  
“’s ok, sweetheart. we gotcha. i gotcha.”  
“Cold…”  
“’s ok. ’s ok.”

He gives you a Huggle, those little comforting soul hugs that make you feel so warm and content so fast. Papyrus kneels at the end of the bed watching his brother hold you. 

“thanks bro… if you hadn’t checked her…”  
“You mean if you hadn’t asked for help, brother. So much could be avoided if you asked more often.”  
“sorry. not great at that.”  
“I’ll be great enough for the three of us, then.”  
“heh. you’re the coolest, bro.”  
“I know. But I think she’s very lucky to have you.”  
“…”

He doesn’t respond, staring at your gently sleeping form under the covers. Maybe not lucky, he thinks. But definitely safe, as long as he’s gonna say anything about it. 

Fin


	8. Stupid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stupid drinking.  
Stupid knife.  
Stupid fight.  
Stupid lungs.  
Luckily, there are good people and monsters out there. And you can burn things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is mostly rambly setup for the next few- sorry about that! But I hope you've been reading carefully. A lot of unexplained crap is gonna get solved soon. And I will make sure to stick something happy in there somewhere. Definitely.

“Come ON! It’ll be fun!”

You sigh. Ali is on the phone- Halloween is tomorrow. You’d planned to go and get candy- no matter how old you get, the promise of free candy and dress up is too much to turn down- and besides, couple costumes! But Ali is inviting you to go drinking with her and her new guys. You’re still recovering from coughing up glass; it’s a relief you’re even alive. Sans isn’t even speaking to Mettaton. It seems like a really bad time, honestly.

“Where would we even go?”  
“Halloween is nickel-shot-night at O’Halligan’s!”  
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure we’ll DIE if we go to O’Halligan’s.”  
“Then can you at least come and stay sober so you can be our designated driver? I don’t wanna get arrested and crap.”  
“I don’t have a license, and I’m still not in the greatest condition, blood-wise. Really, could you order a car in advance or something?”  
“That’s not how it works.”  
“Oh. Well, I don’t know, I’d just rather get candy. But you guys need to stay safe- maybe I could ask one of my friends to come pick you up?”  
“Ooh, what about Sans?! He can drive, right?”

You hesitate. Well, Alphys did say that it’s extremely difficult for skeletons to get drunk, way back when she still remembered you. He isn’t a good driver, exactly, but he’s definitely better than a drunk twenty year old. He can still come trick-or-treating…

“Lemme ask him.”  
“Sweet! You’re the best!”

You put the phone down and sigh. You grumble to yourself, annoyed. This could go so wrong. So, SO wrong. But, they’re your friends, right? So it’s only right you help keep them safe…isn’t that how this works?

“Hey, Sans?”  
“‘sup?”  
“Ali and the guys are going drinking tomorrow night and they need a designated driver-”  
“i thought we were goin’ and gettin’ free candy?”  
“Yeah, we are, I can’t live without my year’s supply of Snickers. But if they get drunk and try to drive, they’ll get arrested. Or worse. Unfortunately, it’s not like I can drive much better in the state I’m in so…”  
“sooooo?”  
“They want you to drive them home.”  
“and what did you say?”  
“I told her I’d ask you. No way am I volunteering you for this stuff.”  
“oh. cool. do we still get candy, though?”  
“Assuming they’ll be out late, we should have time to hit a few neighborhoods and be home before they call.”  
“ok. i’ll do it, don’t want them to do anything stupid.”  
“Thank you so much.”  
“no problem. you good? you look stressed.”

You sigh again and smile tiredly. 

“I am. Just- so much goes wrong with us, I don’t- what if they do something- I dunno. It’ll be fine, though, right? God, though, shots are so hardcore…”  
“what?”  
“The place, O’Halligan’s, is having “nickel shot night”. Who knows what the heck is gonna happen.”

He laughs at the absurdity of the idea.

“geez, that’s so intense. don’t worry, i’ll only bring a dollar.”  
“Oh, god, please don’t.”  
“hey, i’m kidding, it’s ok.”  
“I know, I know. Just nervous… promise me you won’t drink?”  
“you know i hate promises.”  
“Please?”

He looks across the room at how tired you are, how on-edge you are about this, and relents.

“ok,” he sighs. “promise.”  
You smile softly again and pick up the phone. “Thanks. I’m gonna call her back now.”

You sit on the floor in front of the couch, back leaning against it. You know he can hear both ends of the conversation, but he at least pretends not to. 

“Hey, Al.”  
“What’d he say?”  
“He will, just please don’t get so drunk you do something stupid, okay?”“Ha! No promises, squirt! Thank him for me, ‘kay?”  
“Okay.”  
“You good?”  
“Nothin’. Just tired.”

You’re proud of how nonchalant your voice sounds. No quavering or sighing. If you didn’t know you were lying, you wouldn’t even be able to tell. You flinch, and sign off, hang up. 

“This is stupid! God, this is so stupid, why am I doing this?”  
“you wanna do somethin’ to get your mind off of it?”  
“Yes. That’s exactly what I need. We need to get our pillowcases prepped for maximum candy holdage and go pick up our costumes.”  
“perfect. i’ll go get the pillowcases.”

He blips up the stairs, not wanting to do all the walking- you smile. He’s such a lazybones. But at least he’s YOUR lazybones. You hear him shout-

“CRAP.”

He jumps back from the hall closet, and you hear something clatter to the floor.

“You drop something?”  
“y-yup. i’m fine.”  
“What’d you drop?”  
“nothin’ big, somethin’ just fell off a shelf.”  
“Oh, okay. Did it break?”  
“no, it’s good. here, found the pillowcases. how do we “reinforce” these?”

You know he isn’t telling you something, but you’re too stressed already to give it much thought. Snooping can wait until later. You show him how to line the inside of the pillowcases with garbage bags in case any candy melts out of the packaging. He’s impressed.

“you know, first time you had Paps and i take you trick-or-treating, i hated the dang thing.”  
“What? Why?”  
“human’s idea of decorations is… questionable.”

You stare at him a minute, then realize what he means. You start laughing, harder and harder. The skeleton decorations! They aren’t wearing any CLOTHES! He looks so uncomfortable, the poor guy, but you’re laying on the floor, belly laughing so hard it hurts. 

“The-the SKELETONS, OH GEEZ!” you collapse into laughter again.  
“yeah. dunno what makes plastic me-s so terrifying. you know, besides the fact they’re just hanging up naked.”

You can’t breathe, you’re laughing so hard- then a sharp pain in your chest makes you stop.  
You gasp, like the breath was knocked out of you, and try to take deep breaths. It doesn’t work- you cough again, and cough and cough. Until, with a small explosion of blood, a tiny pice of glass comes out of your mouth. Sans comes over and gives you a hug- but no, that isn’t what he’s doing. He quickly builds a magical fire around you and you realize he’s healing you. Something catches in your chest, and you can take a breath again.

“What…just happened?”  
“you have glass bits in your lungs. that’s what Paps says. you coughed up a whole bunch yesterday. takes a lotta magic to heal something like this, though.”  
“I…I have punctured lungs?”  
“that what it’s called?”  
“And I’m ALIVE?”  
“oh, geez. yeah, i think as long as you end up hacking it all up you’ll be fine.”“No, you don’t get it, this’ll… this is bad. This is very very bad.”

You sit, wondering how many more pieces are just waiting to tear you up from the inside and make you cough like a fish out of water…how will you possibly go trick-or-treating like this? What if someone sees…what if somebody sends you to a hospital, you’ll just worry everyone sick again. No. Just need to play this off as NOT a big deal.

“Never mind. I’ll be fine. Just overreacting.”  
“you sure?”  
“Positive- oh, I’ve ruined the pillowcase. Wait, could we just make it look like a body bag? That’d fit the spirit of halloween.”  
“why are human holidays so weird?”  
“Fits our personalities, eh?”  
“yup.”

Now, if you’re on the outside looking in, you might think that all these lies are so blatantly obvious that a baby couldn’t miss them. The thing that fell out of the hall closet is completely normal. Coughing up blood is “no biggie”. Sans is totally not worried. A night of drinking is 100% risk free. Et cetera. But when you’re on the inside of it, it’s easier to pretend it’s all true. Easier to ignore things that’ll come back to bite later. In my personal opinion, if Papyrus were here it would all be over a lot faster. He can read your face just as well as Sans’ by now, not to mention things as serious as this aren’t safe to lie about. But he isn’t.  
The next morning, you read Halloween reviews of different city blocks for getting the maximum amount of candy. Sans is still asleep- you couldn’t be prouder of his costume. To the untrained eye, he was just going as a giant key. But you know- he’s a SKELETON key. Just the thought makes you snort. You’d just gotten an Indiana Jones costume because you had to match somehow- and the whip is cool.  
Something feels off, and you look around. Something guides your eyes to the hall closet upstairs. And something presses you to go up and find what Sans had dropped last night.  
Nothing- everything looks the exact same as you’d always known it. If not for the shoebox maybe being a little less dusty than normal. You reach down and open it, clapping a hand to your mouth when you do. Inside is a knife… THE knife. Handle covered in dust. Blade smeared with blood. There’s only one monster you’d ever known to bleed…and he’s asleep in the next room. The shoebox has a dent in one side, as if it had been kicked hurriedly into one corner. You sit in the hallway, trying to catch your breath- if it gets too far away from you you might do something to your lungs again.  
A minute passes, then two. After about five long minutes, you shakily put the box down by the door and pull on your shoes. The only way to fix this is to go to Hotland and destroy it. Then everything can go back to normal by tonight. Unfortunately, Sans chooses that moment to come out of the bedroom. He looks down at you. 

“mornin’- where are you going?”  
“I- out. Um, for a minute.”  
“yeah, ’cause that isn’t suspicious at all. what’s up, sweetheart?””  
“. . .i just want today to be fun. I just want everything to be normal. Happy normal. That’s what tonight is gonna be, I’ll make sure of it. But first… we need to get rid of this.”

You pick up the shoebox off of the floor with shaky hands. His eyelights dim, serious.

“oh,” he says.  
“You didn’t have to lie about it. I could have known. I’m not weak, Sans. I’ll prove it. And that means throwing this in Hotland by myself.”  
“no. i’m only getting rid of it after i find out who put it there.”  
“They have to show their face eventually. And I can’t stand having it here. Not after-” your hands shake so hard you can hear the knife jumping inside, “Not after what I’ve done with it. I’m dumping it. I’ll be back in a second.”

You turn and walk out the door, but you feel the magic pull on your soul hold you still. He NEVER used it like this. You hold the box to your chest. He can’t keep it. Nobody can keep it. It’s best just to chuck it and watch it burn. It has his BLOOD still on it! That’s not okay! Your anger with yourself bubbles out-

“Don’t, stop, just let me go.”  
“we have to find out who’s doing this to us! i don’t want them to hurt you again; especially if it’s Chara!”  
“So you could have told me instead of lying and trying to hide it like I’m some little kid who can’t handle it! I could help! But NO, I’m too weak.”  
“you know i don’t think that, sweetheart.”  
“Don’t, then. Just let me go.”

Your voice is so angry. You hate it. Your whole brain is screaming that you stop, that you apologize. He doesn’t mean to hurt you, he just wants to protect you…

“fine.” the pull on your soul releases- you nearly fall over. “go. i’ll stay here.”

He turns and shuts the door to his room behind him. God, you feel like such an idiot. But anger is real motivation. You turn and walk out the door, trying to breathe evenly. Papyrus is sitting outside his house watching Impact play in the snow. He looks up when you slam the door, holding the box. 

“Oh, hello, (y/n)! Did something happen? You seem frustrated.”  
“I’m fine, Paps. Just going over to Hotland,” you say through gritted teeth. He doesn’t deserve to be lashed out at.  
“By yourself?”  
“Yes! Yes, I can- I can do things by myself!”  
“I never said you couldn’t. Is something wrong?”  
“No. I’m fine.”  
“You got in a fight, didn’t you?”

You sigh. Of course he knows. He always knows. You nod stiffly.

“It’s like he thinks I can’t handle myself. I can! I KNOW I can, but sometimes. Sometimes he does things that make me think he doesn’t think so. I’m just mad.”

Papyrus looks at you for a minute, then picks up Impact and stands.

“He had the same misconception with me, you know. He’s the most hurt out of the three of us, really. But think about where he’s coming from. You’ve died, been possessed, gotten frostbite, had your legs blown apart, had glass in your back and lungs, fever… you really have had quite the run. (*realizes I’ve hurt my protagonist an insane amount of times*) So he worries. What he fails to see is that even after all that, you get back up. You keep going. Come on, can we walk and talk? I’d like to accompany you to Hotland, if you don’t mind. I know you could do it on your own, but I need the company.”  
“I- okay… shouldn’t I go back and apologize? I yelled at him. A lot.”  
“He can wait until your errand is over.”

Meanwhile, Sans is on the phone with Ali, wondering how to fix all this.

“Well, what’d you do?”  
“i hid something kinda important.”  
“What?”  
“isn’t important. i’m just worried about her, i thought it would be better if i didn’t let her see it.”  
“Hmm. Worried about her, hiding things to protect her… so this is either you cheating, or this is some scarring emotional trauma crap. If it’s the first one, imma beat your ass so hard-”  
“i’m not cheating. that’s sick. actually, it’s the second one. point is, she found it, and now she’s mad i lied and she’s going to get rid of it by herself, in the most dangerous place down here.”  
“And where are you?”  
“back home.”  
“That’s a shocker. I woulda thought you’d be trying to save her from whatever demon is going to get her this time.”  
“yeah. me, too.”  
“Anyway, so is the fact that she’s going to get rid of this thing bad?”  
“it’s pretty bad, yup.”  
“And you let her go by herself. Into the most dangerous place. To dump something she shouldn’t be dumping. Emphasis on BY HERSELF. Wow. And you aren’t worried?”  
“terrified, actually.”  
“Thought so. And you told her this before she left?”  
“kinda? i think so.”  
“Whelp, there’s your problem, bonebrain. She hates it when she thinks people are treating her like she can’t do things. When she was on the surface, we used to tell her she was too young to key a car, and she’d get arrested. Well one day she did it anyway, out of pure spite for us- she nearly got herself shot, man. The more you treat her like this, the more she’ll resent it. Just let her do her thing, and save her when she learns it’s a bad idea.”  
“that sounds like the worst way ever.”  
“Probably. Never been good at the saving thing, more the putting-people-in-danger thing.”  
“then why am i talking to you?”  
“Because you know I know her. And I know how girl emotions work.”

Sans hangs up then, and tries to call you. Your phone rings downstairs on the table. Right. You left it here. 

It’s nearly eleven now. You wish you’d eaten breakfast- your stomach growls as you walk through Waterfall. Papyrus laughs. He’s tried to help you, giving you advice and counsel just like when he would teach you stuff as a kid. Maybe you should be indignant- you WERE trying to prove you could do things yourself, after all. But that’s not what this feels like. It feels more like he’s your older brother again. It’s nice. Impact squeals and points at things, clapping his little hands. Papyrus bounces him gently and talks to you. You listen.

“He just wants to know he can help the people he cares about. He hasn’t exactly had it easy in that sense. You’re good at it. You get hurt, and he doesn’t. When people pick on him, you divert their attention to you. So they pick on you instead. He wants that so badly. Wants to be able to help. But plain and dry- he can’t. It’s a shame that every time one of us gets hurt, it hurts him, too. Maybe more than us.”  
“I hate that. I HATE that. That’s kinda part of the reason I’m throwing this out.” You shake the box. “I don’t want it hanging around the house. It’s not exactly happy memories.”  
“May I ask what it is?”

You hesitate. Would it scare him? No, that’s dumb. You just finished ranting about how you wanted people to know you can handle yourself- Paps can, too.

“It’s a knife. When Chara had me… I killed a lot of monsters with it. It-” you can barely bring yourself to say it. “It still has dust and stuff on it. Put it in the box ‘cause I don’t like looking at it.”

Papyrus looks horrified. You wince. He probably didn’t need all the details. You’re just happy you said “stuff” instead of “Sans’ goddamn blood”, at least. Silence blankets the walk, save for Impact’s babbles. 

Sans sits on his bed, staring at the ceiling. Today was supposed to be some fun holiday, and you’re out there, probably alone, wearing layers into the hottest part of the underground. If you didn’t pass out from heat first, you’d cough up blood and ruin your lungs. Why doesn’t he go get you?! Maybe it’s a gut feeling, maybe something worse, like anger, keeps him home. Just because he deserved to be called out for what he’d done doesn’t mean it’s a good feeling.  
He sits up on an elbow and looks at the cabinet where his skeleton-key costume sits, where your Indiana Jones costume leans against the wall. You’d thought the whip was cool. 

‘stupid. sittin’ around the house moping when she’s out there. i gotta go get her… but her face when i tried to hold her back. if she’s still mad, i’ll only make it worse, i’ll ruin the whole day. stupid. maybe i can make it up to her when she gets home.”

You drop the box in the bubbling lava. It burns quickly and reveals the knife. The knife doesn’t burn. It just smolders and sinks. But you see it glint red before it’s gone. Papyrus’ eyesockets look seriously down at it. 

“Let’s go home, yes? He’ll be worried.”  
“He shouldn’t be…but you’re right.”  
“It’s okay. If you need a different reason, you look like you might faint.”  
“Heh. I might, actually. Let’s go home.”

You lean against one of his long legs and watch the box burn a moment more before turning to walk out of the horribly hot place. 

Sans sits up when he hears the front door open. He walks out into the hallway and sees you- you’re fine, save for being sweaty and uncomfortable. You look up sheepishly.

“Sorry I yelled. You didn’t mean of it like that, I overreacted.”  
“i’m sorry i lied…c’mere.”

He walks down the stairs and hugs you. You sigh with relief. So he isn’t mad. He sighs, too. So you aren’t mad.

“i shouldn’t use my magic on you like that, it isn’t fair.”  
“. . .wait a second.”  
“what?”

He takes a step back to look at you. Your face is screwed up in concentration. 

“Wait a second… can you focus your magic on ANYTHING if you focus?”  
“um…yeah.”  
“Even if you can’t see it?”  
“it’s harder if i can’t see it, but i can.”  
“Do you think you could try pulling any of the glass left out of my lungs?!”

You’re gripping his hoodie sleeves tight- hoping. This could fix everything! He wouldn’t have to worry as much when you’re out by yourself, anyway. But he pauses.

“we’ll ask Paps for help. he’s better with the healing stuff, if you need it.”  
“Yes! See? I can do this, I can do this, we can do it right now so you don’t have to worry when you drive the guys home!”

Your smile is so wide, your eyes shining. If there was ever a fight, it’s forgotten now. He pulls you back into a hug, smiling a bit himself.

“sure, sweetheart. anything. just happy you aren’t mad.”  
“I- oh, you’re the best… I shouldn’t have yelled. I shouldn’t have thrown out the knife.”  
“screw the knife.”  
“Pfft. That would hurt.”

He stares at you a second, then blushes hard, stuttering.

“not literally.”  
“I know, bonehead. Love you.” you peck him on the head and turn, pulling his hand. “Now let’s go fix my stupid lungs.”

Fin- part two coming out in a bit because this one got way too long!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is kinda hard to follow: so TLDR,  
-Ali and her friends are going drinking, and Sans is now their designated driver  
-Sans found your old knife in the hall closet and hid it from you  
-You find the knife and get mad Sans hid it from you  
-You get in a fight with him over it  
-You reconcile  
-You wonder if Sans can fix your lungs with blue magic


	9. Fix What's Broken and Heed The Warnings.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sans and Paps heal your lungs- but it takes longer than expected.   
Ali still misses Caster.  
And the warnings from the man in the void are stronger than before.

Sans is sitting up on the couch next to you. Papyrus is on your other side. You’re bracing yourself-

The idea is that Sans will focus his magic on any glass left in your body and try to guide it out. This should hurt you a lot, so then Papyrus will come in immediately afterwards to help heal. In the long run, it should help. And since trick-or-treating is tonight, it needs to be fixed.

“ok, sweetheart, get ready. three, two, ONE.” Sans says, and then you glow blue.

Your lungs prick and stab with pain, making your hands pin to your chest- but as he brings them out, they slice and stab at your throat. You cough up blood and glass. There’s so much that you’d missed. But the open holes make your lungs fall flat- it’s so hard to breathe. So, so hard to breathe.  
The room goes black with no oxygen going to your eyes- and the wave of warmth crashes over you. It goes on for a long time. You’re still coughing, but slowly, the holes mend, the scars in your throat knit back together. When you try to take a full breath, it hurts. You grip something hard- you really aren’t sure what it is, but it’s warm and stable. You can’t help but whimper in pain.   
Eventually, the black covering your vision fades. You take a large inhale- it doesn’t twinge. Your tongue still tastes metallic and salty- the taste of blood- and it reminds you of when you lost a tooth in a practice spar with Undyne.   
Oh- somebody’s talking. You blink back the last of the darkness. It’s Sans; he’s murmuring, trying to support you.

“-c’mon, say somethin’, please.”   
“. . .I’m *cough* good. Tired. Gimme a sec.”

You look around at your surroundings. Everything’s all tilted- you sit up from half-laying in his lap. The thing in your hand is his wrist- you let go. Papyrus has a hand on your back, and he pulls back on the healing magic. When it’s done, he speaks. He sounds exhausted, and even a little scared.

“How do you feel?”  
“Winded. I think…I think I fell over. Thank you- oh, I ruined this shirt.”

You look down at your shirt- glass shards and blood splatter the front. It’s on your hands, too. You can’t imagine how you look. Like you just walked away from a murder scene, probably. 

“Was I out long?” You ask, hyper-fixated on pulling all the little glass pieces out of your shirt.  
“just, uh, a bit. and don’t worry about the shirt, i can fix it.” Sans says, leaning back on the couch and letting out a sigh of relief.

You’re so lucky that worked. You could have died…look at all this glass, for crying out loud! You hold out your arms, relieved yourself, lucky they’re your family-

“You guys mind a group hug with all this?” you wave a hand at your soaked shirt.

Papyrus smiles and hugs you first.

“Of course not, sister. You’re alright, that’s what matters.”

Sans comes in next, chuckling.

“can’t pass up an excuse for a group hug, huh?”

It’s such a nice hug, everybody happy you’re alright- including you. It might have gone on forever if your phone hadn’t rang. You laugh and give them both one last squeeze, then stand. The laugh makes your chest feel bruised, but not broken. You choose to ignore it- no point in whining about things they can’t do anything about. It’s Ali calling.

“Hey, Al.”  
“Hey! Soooo, when are you coming up to the surface?”  
“A few hours from now, it isn’t even six yet. Why?”  
“Dude, it’s like, nine! We just showed up at O’Halligans, trick-or-treating started ages ago!”  
“Wait, what?”

You check the clock. It IS nine… but when they started fixing your lungs it was only one o’clock… how long were you out, REALLY?

“Yeah, you’re right. I’ll be up later, I’ll call you back.”

Before she can even speak, you hang up on her and turn to the boys. They both look like guilty puppies, and a small part of you wants to laugh.

“Why is it nine?” you ask, half-suspiciously, half-confused.  
“um…time passes?” Sans suggests. Papyrus facepalms into his glove. You frown.  
“I got that, Sherlock. It was only one when we started! I thought you said I was only out for a bit, not eight hours!”  
“i did say that.”  
“And?”  
“it may have been a little bit of a stretch.”  
“Yeah. Okay. Why didn’t you say something? Both of you?”

They look at the floor- you feel pretty disappointed. By the time you get dressed and go to the surface, it’ll nearly be ten. Meaning trick-or-treaters will have picked up most of the candy already. Especially the Snickers. Paps speaks first;

“The healing didn’t really, ah, WORK at first. It look a long time to- to get you breathing again. After we pulled the glass out. We had to take turns healing you so we weren’t too tired and you stayed…um…awake. Then, once you were steady, you were asleep for a very long time. We didn’t want you to think we were worried- or that we had a reason to. It was my idea, not Sans’, don’t blame him.”

You sigh…this is just the fault of your stupid human lungs, not them.

“You didn’t have to lie about it, guys. It obviously didn’t last long, anyway. We’re all just trying to protect each other, right? I’d rather have honesty than be all cozy and innocent and safe. Not that I was ever innocent in the first place…anyway. I don’t blame you guys. I’m so sorry I was out that long. And you know what? Snickers go on sale after Halloween, anyway. We can just go buy a bag. Only thing we need to do is pick up the guys later.” you hesitate, look at how bleary-eyed Sans looks. He would not make a great driver for this. “But how about we ask Undyne to do it?”

No response. You come forward and hug them both in turn, hugs that thank them for everything.

“We all need some sleep, huh? I can call Undyne.”  
“she’s no good with human directions. i can do it…just gimme five minutes,” Sans says, eyelids already drooping.  
“Or fifteen hours. I’ll call ‘Dyne.”

You call her- she doesn’t answer. Tori? No answer. Asgore? At some diplomatic meeting. Alphys?? “Busy”. Metta is filming a Halloween special, you don’t even try calling him.   
When you look back at Sans and Papyrus, they’re asleep on the couch. No wonder- using any kind of magic as long as they did is tiring- and it honestly isn’t safe. So you let them sleep. Maybe Ari’ll get a ride home some other way? She’ll call when she needs one, anyway. Maybe they’ll be awake by then.   
You press on your chest- you’re sure it must be bruised somewhere- it sure feels like it. You step up the stairs into the bathroom. You look terrible. Matted hair, dried blood on your shirt and mouth and hands. Tired eyes. You’re pale- probably a bit of blood loss. Not to mention you haven’t eaten much all day. The thing that scares you most, though, are the little spotty scars on your neck. How would they get there? It’s almost like the glass came straight out of your neck…well, maybe it did. You splash some water on your face and brush out your hair. Better. But scars don’t just wash away.  
All your different scars- you count five dots on your neck. A thin, straight line on your face where that bone attack burned your eye. The familiar heart-shaped brand from Mettaton’s robot minion all those years ago. The long, twisting ones where Sans had twisted and broken your legs to save you from Chara. Your missing finger. Even your red eyes. You almost feel proud looking at them all. Papyrus was right, wasn’t he? You always got up after you fell. Always.  
Your phone rings downstairs, and you hurry to answer it before it wakes the skelebros. One look at them makes you smile. Sans is slumped over, hands folded on his ribcage, as usual. Papyrus has one arm around his brother, the other thrown over the back of the couch. Well, at least he’d get some real sleep for once.  
You frown when Ali’s contact flashes on your screen. Making sure to turn the volume down, you murmur into the receiver. 

“Ali?”  
“Yeah!!! WHOOOO-”

You cover the speaker with your hand to block out the wolf howl and go upstairs. Sounds like Ali really took advantage of nickel-shot-night.

“Ali, what is it? Do you need to get picked up?”  
“YEAH, MAN! Everybody’s all passed out on the floor! Party!”  
“That sounds bad.”  
“NO! ’S FUN!”  
“I’m coming to pick you up- oh, god, where are you?”

You hear questionable noises on the other end- people smashing things, shouts, and others you’d rather not see the source of.

“I’m at O’HALLIGAAAAN’S!” she whoops, and you hear the whole bar whoop with her. Oh, god. 

“Give me half an hour. How drunk are you?”  
“I’M FINE AS HELLLLLL!”  
“So, very drunk?”“YEAH, DUDE!”

You have to hold the receiver away from your ear when she shouts. 

“And the guys?”  
“YO, dude, can I tell you a secret?”

She’s stage whispering fairly loudly, but it’s preferable to the screaming.

“Mm-hmm?”  
“John kissed me, man! Like, tongue and everything!”

You did NOT need to know that. At all. But it does mean you ought to go get them. You hang up and pull on some shoes. As you step down the stairs, you stop next to the couch. They’ll wake up at some point… what if you’re out when they do? They’d flip out. You ought to at least tell them before you go. And if they volunteer to go instead of you, well, you can’t say you’d mind.  
You gently shake Papyrus’ shoulder, and he wakes up, rubbing sleep out of his eyes. 

“Mmm…yes? Are you alright? What time is it?”  
“It’s only ten, and I’m fine. I’m going to help drive my friends on the surface home. I’ll be back in a bit.”  
“Are you sure it’s safe for you to drive?”  
“I should be fine. Thought I’d tell you before I head out.”  
“Okay. Be safe.”  
“I’ll try,” you whisper as he falls back asleep.

You shake Sans awake second, half-hoping he’ll volunteer to go instead of you. 

“heya… sorry, musta been a while. whashappnin’?”

Oh, he’s so tired. You bite your lip indecisively. Should you even tell him? 

“Never mind. Just heading out for a sec. Love you.”

You kiss him on the skull and let him nod back to sleep, not even seeming to recognize that you spoke. You get in the Blueberry and head out. It’s a lot harder to drive than everyone makes it look. Checking mirrors, checking road, blind spots, other cars. After about thirty tiring minutes, you pull up in front of O’Halligans. It’s decked out in Halloween decor and drunk people. You see Ali crouched, arms holding her legs to her chest, in the alley. Oh, geez.   
Pretending you didn’t see it, you dial her number. You watch her silence her glowing phone with one hand. After you call five times, she picks up.

“What?” She sounds distracted. And drunk.  
“The car’s right out here in the lot. You need to grab the guys and get ‘em in here.”  
“. . .okay. Bye.”

She hangs up and you watch her stand and drag the guys out by their arms. Wait, is she sober? That wouldn’t make sense.

“Hey guys. Get in the car.”

They squeeze in, yelling and mumbling gibberish. Only Ali stays silent. Once the one named Beck is dropped off, you can start to make sense of some of the words John is saying to her. 

“Hey, whassup? You’re really, liiiike, sad,” his words slur and stretch. Ali mumbles.  
“I shouldn’t’ve kissed you.”  
“Why not? I’m so cool, thuh.”   
“Caster will hate me when we’re ghosts.” 

Oh. Well, it’s kind of weird the way she phrased it…but you know what she means. She shouldn’t be under that type of guilt for trying to move on. 

“So his ghost is gonna beat up my ghost? Damn, I’m gonna die twice? That’s sucky,” John says, staring at the ceiling of the car.  
“He’ll be mad at me, not you.”

The rest of the ride is silent. John is dropped off next, and you turn back to the Underground with Ali still in the car. If she’s this drunk, she shouldn’t be by herself when hangover kicks in. Maybe there’s still stuff for banana muffins, you heard those help. Ali falls asleep in the back.   
When you pull into Snowdin, helping her out of the car, she throws up everywhere. Most of it landed in the snow, but some hit your boots. You don’t care. You’re too tired to care. Luckily, when you walk in the door, both brothers are still asleep. Once Ali is safely in the racecar bed, you go downstairs to wake up Papyrus. Mettaton’ll be worried about him.

“You gotta wake up, Paps.”  
“Hmm?” he yawns tiredly and stands. “Oh, yes, you’re right. Goodnight, then.”  
“Thank you, for everything today. Get some sleep.”  
“I will. And take a shower, too, it would do you a world of good.”  
“Will do. Night.”

He walks out the door after giving you a tired hug, and disappears into his house. Sans mumbles a little, tossing and turning in his sleep. Nightmares, of course.

“Sans.”  
“…mmm, don’t, you’ll hurt her…”  
“Sans, wake up.”  
“…stop…”  
“Please,” you say, shaking his shoulder a little harder.  
“STOP!” he sits up suddenly, eyesockets wide with fear, nearly hitting you in the face. You back away a little, and the glowing tears sting his eyes. He’s so scared. So sad. 

“no…”  
“It was just a nightmare. I’m okay.”  
“but…”  
“You healed me, ‘member? Oh, don’t cry, I’m okay, really.”

You let him cradle your face in both hands.

“yeah… you’re ok. you’re ok.”

He swipes at his eyes. You smile sadly to yourself and scoop him off the couch. He’s bright blue, but he’s smiling now. You carry him into the hallway outside your room and set him down as gently as you can- which isn’t very gently- and he thumps on the floor.

“I’m going to clean off, okay?”  
“ok. meet you in here?” he asks, leaning on the door.  
“Always. Be right back.”

The shower is incredibly refreshing. By the time you’re done you’re about to fall asleep right on the floor. Clean shirt. Clean pajama pants. Fantastic. When you crack open the bedroom door, Sans is still awake, eyelights flickering dimly. You crash on the bed next to him and sigh contentedly. He looks over and his eye sockets scrunch up happily as you fall asleep. 

Dreams, however, aren’t much escape.

Instead of a nightmare, you wake up in a very dark place. Pitch black- nothing else. There’s a person at the end. Not a man or a woman or a monster, it’s too dark to determine all that. Just a person. The person speaks.

“Ah…you’re alive.”

You look at them, somehow not at all afraid of their scratchy record voice. Cocking your head a little to one side, you ask curiously.

“Erm, yes. Who are you?”  
“You’ve met me.”  
“You sound familiar.”  
“So easy to forget the dead.”  
“. . .Caster?”  
“No. Ha! A human. If this universe didn’t hinge on your well-being, I’d have destroyed myself for even conversing with a human as now.”  
“You’re a monster…I don’t know any dead monsters. Sorry.”  
“Never mind. I’m just here to tell you to stop tossing every warning I try to give you into the Core. Warnings, human. I’ve tried to help you thus far, and I’ve become solid enough at times to try harder, but you do not thank me for my assistance, heed my warnings. What anonymous donor could possibly have rigged the system enough to pay your way through frostbite treatment for free…hmm? Or told your- ugh- “brother” you were out dying in the woods? Why do the humans who need to remember you remember you, and the others forget? You have NO IDEA.”  
“You did that stuff? Thank you, I really-” you begin. A single white hand with a hole through the middle reaches out of the darkness, fingers tense and angry.

“SILENCE. SHE MAY BE GONE FROM THE MORTAL WORLD, BUT YOUR LIFE WILL BE A LIVING HELL WHEN SHE RETURNS. SHE IS STRONGER. MANY WILL BE MAIMED FOR YOUR SAKE, AND AS WILL YOU. THEIR UNFAILING LOYALTY WILL BE THEIR DOWNFALL.”

After his speech, you whisper into the void.

“Who…?”  
“You know very well the demon that haunts your nightmares. Stay vigilant. I will cease leaving objects for you. They aren’t real, just copies, anyhow. But…your face at his blood on the knife…pathetic, caring about someone as weak as him. He’ll die at the first gust of wind.”

Your eyes snap open and you shake a little. So there’s worse than this? Worse to come? No…you won’t be alone. Your friends will be there beside you. Sans. Paps. Mettaton, Impact, Alphys. Undyne, Tori, even Asgore.  
The thought makes you relax. You let your fingers clutch the arm of Sans’ hoodie and fall asleep with it in your hand. Demons can wait until you’ve had a decent night’s sleep.

Fin.


	10. Today Is Going To Be a Good Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The wave is getting closer...  
but it hasn't hit yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHOO! I FINALLY HIT A HUNDRED THOUSAND WORDS! DETERMINATION!  
Thank you, everyone!

“Today will be a good day!”  
-is what you proclaimed when you woke up. Scared Sans half out of his wits, since he was half asleep. 

You’re so determined to start and end the day with no catastrophes. No lung issues. No demons, no ominous warnings, and NO. WORRYING.   
But, then there’s hangover. Which Ali has a lot of. She doesn’t want the muffins and bananas and pills and water, but they help her, anyway. When she’s done, she falls right to sleep. Well, it’s an improvement. You make pancakes, too, with what ingredients you have left after the muffins.  
Sans comes downstairs to find you making pancakes fervently, dumping chocolate chips in the batter and flipping them all into a huge pile.

“um…wow? mornin’.”  
“Good morning! Want some?” you say, determination in your voice.  
“three. thanks,” he drops into a chair and grins nervously. “uh, you seem chipper.”  
“Yes! Thanks! It’s really tiring! But you know what? I’ve decided today is gonna be a happy day. No matter what.”  
“heh. you don’t have to be so, um, excited, sweetheart. chill days can be the best kinds of days, huh?”  
“Yeah, maybe you’re right,” you admit, swiping a few pancakes from the top of the pile and sitting at the table. “We won’t be alone, though. Ali’s upstairs sleeping in Papyrus’ old room, she has hangover and I didn’t want her to be by herself.”  
“oh, wait, i forgot, i was supposed to pick her up, wasn’t i? and her guys?” he facepalms and groans.  
“You were so tired last night, so I just did it. Besides drunk people being crazy weirdos, it went fine. No violence, no creeps, nothing. Ali was a little down in the dumps at the end, though.”  
“d’you know why?”  
“Apparently one of her guys, erm, drunk-kissed her, and then she felt bad. Dunno if I told you this, but she had a thing with Caster. You know. Then.” you can’t bring yourself to say “when he was alive”. 

Sans’ eyelights go out and you put a hand on his back.

“What do I always tell you?”  
“it’s not my fault.”  
“And do you believe it?”  
“i’m tryin’. always tryin’.”  
“Right. Keep it up. Eventually the guilt goes away if you persevere. You know, determination and all that.”  
He sighs, but smiles. “yup.”  
“So,” you start, trying to change the subject, “got any new puns? Haven’t told any in a while…”

It’s true- he’s been too worried for puns. Which made you worried. You smile brightly again, and he chuckles. He leans back in his chair, puts his arms behind his head, gets that LOOK. The look that tells you he’s about to go into rapid-fire-machine-pun mode.

“you hear about the angry pancake?” he asks, nonchalantly.  
“No! What happened?”  
“he just FLIPPED.” 

Before you’re even done laughing, he starts again.

“you know, Grillby makes pancakes, but they’re always too thin. i shouldn’t have to deal with this crépe!”

That one takes you a second; then you laugh harder. You fire one back on him-

“Ha! But do you know how you get a pancake to do what he wants?”  
“no, how?”  
“You BUTTER him up!”

Back and forth go pancake puns, toast puns, egg puns, and laughter. The actual pancakes get cold, but you really don’t care. You’d made too many, anyway. Now, puns you can make more of.  
When you hear Ali moan upstairs, you snicker into your hand and make a motion for him to quiet down, too. Your whole face is lit up, red from holding back laughter. A few deep breaths and recurring giggle fits later, you’re quiet. 

“Hey, hey, no more puns for a sec, I don’t wanna wake Sleeping Beauty up there.”  
“who? Ali?”  
“Oh, um, nevermind. Really old human story thing.”  
“so, sorry again we couldn’t go get candy last night, so you wanna go pick some up on the surface later today? we can finally go up there risk-free if Paps’ll watch Ali for a bit.”  
“Sure! But, if we go up there, we’ll need a lot of groceries and stuff. So it might take a while. It’ll feel great, though. Let’s call him and see if he’s home, or do you know?”  
“yup, he’s home with Impact today.”  
“Can you boop over and ask?”  
“boop over?” he smirks, and you wave your error away with a hand-  
“Do the shortcut thingy, I mean.”  
“ok, heheh. boop,” he taps a finger on your nose and vanishes. 

You clean up the last of the pancakes and turn around when they walk in the front door- Papyrus is holding Impact, too. He sits down at the table, bouncing the babybones on one knee and looking energized. 

“Heya, Paps!” you say brightly.  
“Hello, (y/n)! I’m told Ali is asleep upstairs?”  
“Yup. Sans and I need to go shopping and junk. You can watch her?”  
“Of course- happy to help.”  
“Thanks so much. I need to see the surface again, geez.”  
“Yes, it does feel great. Sans, that’s cheating.”

Sans magics the dishes you were working on out to dry. You snort- so lazy. But useful. He shrugs.

“never knew dishes had rules, bro.”  
“Well- you know what I mean. Why did you never used to do that, anyway?”  
“too lazy.”  
“So why do it now? I could’ve used some help around the house, you know. Just look at the sock!”

Everybody turns to the ancient sock covered in sticky notes, and you snort.

“guess I’ve become a bit less of a lazybones, eh?” he says, elbowing you.  
“You still don’t guard your sentry station,” Papyrus says, only half-kidding.  
“what’re we trying to capture now, anyway?”  
“I don’t know…but it keeps me doing something, besides watching Impact while Mettaton is out filming, so I keep watching.”  
“whelp, tell me when you find whatever you’re lookin’ for. personally, i think we got everything fine here.”  
“Alright. But your station is always open.”  
“cool. thanks, bro.”

Grocery shopping takes a couple hours, and you’re happy to say it’s as normal and boring as it can get. No bullies. No creeps. No strangers calling the cops. Probably the most exciting thing that happened was the sale on Snickers. You bought three “fun size” bags. It’s hours later, when you’re putting all the groceries away when the fun part starts.   
You’re thanking Papyrus for watching Ali (she didn’t get up, so it was a fairly easy job) when Impact squeals to be put down. Confused, Paps obliges. Impact crawls over to you, then uses your legs as a support to stand up. Once on his feet, his little face screws up in concentration. He spreads his arms out wide and babbles-

“Ta-da!!!”

You squeal- he’s so cute- and scoop him up. Papyrus claps and congratulates his son on his cool new trick. Sans laughs. Impact points to go outside next, but when you go to hand him off to Papyrus he shakes his head “no” and shouts. Bewildered, you carry him out, bouncing him a little. Maybe he’s tired? Once safely there, he leans into your ear and speaks the best he can- it’s hard to understand at first, but he finally pushes out a proper sentence.

“The scary man is in my pictures again.”  
“What?” you ask. “What man? What pictures?”  
“The bad man with the bad hands.”  
“Does he…have holes in his hands?”   
“Big circles.”  
“In his hands?”  
“Yes.” Oh, no.  
“Do you want me to tell Pappy?” you ask, trying to keep a brave face.  
“No! Pappy got sad when I telled him.” he says firmly.  
“Oh…why are you t-telling me?”  
“You won’t get sad. The scary man says he talked to you too.” he looks down and plays with the tassels on your hoodie. It’s the first time you’ve seen it, but you know that his smile is fake. He has the same fake smile as Sans.  
“What else has he told you?” you ask, nervous.

You glance up at the window, and notice that Papyrus and Sans keep looking your way, at your suddenly scared face. You brighten enough to wave, then sit on the ground so they can’t see your reactions through the window. Impact says,

“He says bad things’re gonna do. He says you gotta stay alive, though, or he gets hurt. Bad things’re gonna do.”  
“Oh. He told me that, too.”  
“Who is he?” he says, meeting your eyes.

Oh, geez. How to phrase this in a kid-friendly way?

“When Pappy and Sans were really little, like you, the scary man made them. But he wasn’t their dad. He was…just a scientist. He was really mean to them. He did lots of mean things. I’ve never asked about what happened to him. But Impact, you gotta listen to me, though, listen really careful.”  
“Mmm-hmm?”  
“Don’t mention the scary man to Pappy, or Pappy will get sad. For now, you can talk to me or you can talk to puncle Sans. He can’t hurt you. He can’t. But- if you ever see a girl with red eyes, though, tell somebody. ANYBODY. The girl is very bad, Impact. Do you understand?”  
“Yes, auntie.”

You sigh, sorry you went so hardcore on him. Well, at least now he gets the idea. You sing a little, the song they taught you in school back when you were little. The memory is rusty-

“Ring around the rosie, pocket full of posies, um, uh, pebbles, no, that’s not it.”  
“Pebbles! Pebbles!” Impact shouts, clapping. You smile.  
“Pebbles, pebbles, we all!” You toss him up and catch him. “Fall!” You toss him up again. “Down!” This time he ghosts in mid-air, and you just catch his little skeleton body. 

It doesn’t frighten you that he’s ghosted. This happened sometimes, and his little ghost is actually really cute. It how hollow his eyes look, how magic-less his empty body is, that makes you ask him to “please come back in”.

Once he and Papyrus leave a little later, you flop on the couch and sigh. Sans immediately questions you, sitting backwards in a kitchen chair.

“what’d you do with the babybones out there? you looked kinda spooked.”  
“He told me he’s been having nightmares.”  
“oh god… but he’s so small! what could he be scared of, anyway?!” he looks almost indignant.  
“He’s been having nightmares about…about Gaster.”

Sans stops cold, eyelights dying. You sigh again, a small one, and stand. You go over to him and hold his face in your hands.

“Gaster won’t hurt him,” you say confidently. “He doesn’t want to.”  
“how do you know what he wants?”  
“Because he knows if he lays a finger on my family, I’ll reset. And if I reset, I take him with me.”  
“you’ve had nightmares ‘bout him too, haven’t you?”

You smile sadly and nod. You can see the pain inside him. It’s so strong…

“You’re hurt.”  
“where?” he asks, eyelights coming back dimly to lean back from the chair and look down at his chest.  
“I can see it. I know you can see it. C’mere.”

He stands and lets you hug him tightly. Your hand rests right over his soul, you can feel it thrumming. 

“Right there,” you murmur. “Right there. I don’t like when you get hurt there.”   
“oh. heh. ’s a sore spot.”  
“I know. I wanna help.” you hug him tighter, inwardly wishing you could heal him just like he can always heal you.  
“today’s gonna be a good day, right?” he says, leaning back enough to see your face. “no more worrying, huh? that’s my job.”

You smile and hug him one more time, burying your face in his hood.

“Both of ours. You don’t get to hog it. And besides, since when have you done your job?”

He drags you over to the couch and plops beside you, letting you play with the fur on his hoodie with your fingertips. He says, quietly,

“since we can’t control squat here, you wanna share dreams again? that’s some good day material.”

You nod and suddenly you’re in his bedroom, laying on the bed. You cuddle up into his warmth and wait for sleep to come. He warns you-

“the start is the dream we can’t change ‘cause it takes me a sec to come in after you. for some reason. it might be scary, but you gotta remember- they’re just dreams, ‘kay? not real.”  
“I know. Bracing myself. ‘Night, bonehead,” you say, smiling and settling in.  
“‘night, sweetheart.”

You fall asleep pretty fast, and there’s that sensation of being pulled down a long corridor in the dark. But this time there isn’t any light at the end of the tunnel. You almost feel relieved- no golden judgment hall today. But that doesn’t mean you’re safe- when you arrive, you hear Gaster again. See the person at the end of the void, feel the crushing darkness. You wait for the angry hands to appear out of nowhere, the shouts of warnings. They don’t come. But when he steps forward, the person isn’t Gaster. It’s Sans.   
This twisted version of Sans has eyelights that glow bright red. He has your- no, Chara’s- knife in one hand. His words come out in his voice, but they sure as heck aren’t his.

“you think i really forgot? all that stuff you did to us? heh, nope. kids like you…should be burning in HELL.”

He towers over you, taller than usual somehow. You take a few shaking steps back, trying to remind yourself it’s all a dream, Chara can’t take monsters, it’s impossible. And this can’t really be Sans. It’s just your fears.

“I-I’m not afraid of you!” -you’re terrified, of course- “Just leave me alone! G-go away. Please, I swear- I didn’t, it wasn’t me!”

The red-eyed Sans doesn’t respond. He just grins creepily and starts to change. Suddenly, he’s your seven year-old memory of your dad. The memory that sits in your subconscious, twisting and showing him when he was at his worst. He has a bottle in one hand, and that crazed rage in his eyes. He yells incoherently, and you stumble backwards in surprise and fear. Of course, the blows raining down on you don’t actually hit, but you still have the memories of them engraved into your mind. You know what they feel like, how they landed.  
Behind you, Sans enters. One look at your shaking figure on the floor and the man over you makes his left eye smolder with anger. No WAY would some human be allowed to do this to you. No WAY. He runs over and tries to send attacks through the man, but they just phase through and die. Right. Just a dream. He crouches down in front of you instead, blocking the angry fists. You flinch for a second at his touch, but when you hear his murmuring, you let him pull you into his arms.

“just a dream, remember? ’s just a dream, sweetheart. i’m here, i gotcha.” he strokes your hair and you tremble with relief.  
“Sorry…bad memories. Can we get out of here?”  
“yup. on it.”

One blip later, you’re standing in Snowdin. It’s empty, silent. 

“you gotta take us somewhere,” he says- “i can’t make new dreams like you can. i can only take ya into my old ones.”

You look around, still trying to get over the shock from a minute ago, at the empty streets and windows. No lights on in any of the homes. You think you recognize a light scattering of dust on the top of the snow.

“This is a bad one, isn’t it?” you say, quietly.  
“yeah.”  
“What happens?”  
“not sure you really wanna know.”

You think about pressing it, but decide against it. Taking his hand, you twist and pull into the new dream.   
Some song plays before anything else comes into being- it's some old love song you’ve long forgotten the name of, but you’re swaying slowly, humming along. The non-existence of anything- other than Sans’ hand in yours- feels nice. You imagine your missing finger back into being, which feels good, too. Buttercups sprout under your feet, and you catch your breath at the sight of plains and plains of them going on forever. The sky sparkles with darkness and fireflies. Just a dream…but such a nice one to be in.   
You imagine wings onto your back, the kind you’ve always wanted, with sleek black feathers that shine iridescent in the light. Human was never quite your style, deep down. You float into the warm air, feel the stars sparkle on your face- there’s no pain here, just wings and flowers and sky. A gentle tug on your hand grounds you- literally. You sink back down and look into Sans’ eyelights. They’re big and bright, which is a good sign; at least now he can relax.   
You notice how nice he looks when he’s relaxed. Everybody looks better with a real smile on. You flash one right back; it makes his even wider. You say it softly-

“You look so happy when you’re relaxed… it’s really nice on you.”  
“the things you can do to a guy, sweetheart,” he chuckles.  
“Pfft. No. I just get hurt and die and freak you out. I can DREAM of happy places, but I can’t make them. One day, it’ll be like this,” you sweep an arm out at the buttercups and endless horizon. “but for now, well, at least we can dream, huh?”

Sans grins and wraps an arm around your waist.

“you really don’t see it, do you?”  
“What? See what?”  
“how happy you make everyone. people really care about you for a reason. sure, maybe you get hurt a lot, and i get scared for you. but that doesn’t mean you don’t make us- ME- happy. hell, look at Impact. he gets scared and he automatically goes to you ‘cause he knows. you’re auntie (y/n). you make it happy again.”  
“That isn’t why. I mean, thank you, really, but that isn’t why,” you say, looking away.  
“then what is it? i know you’ve got somethin’ on your mind.”

You pull your hand away gently and sit. Your wings fold carefully up on your back. 

“Can’t we talk about this tomorrow? I want today to be a good-”  
“you can’t fake happy for long. i would know. what’s wrong?”  
“Why can’t we just have ONE normal day? Why do bad things ALWAYS happen to us?! It’s- agh, it’s-” you’re stuttering for the words angrily. 

All you wanted was to make him happy, just for today. Just ONE day. One day you could stop all the worrying for him. You pull yourself together and take a deep breath.

“I’ll sum it up for you: Gaster left all those creepy things in our hall closet as a warning. He’s been trying to help us all along, Sans. He’s been screwing with the system when he knew we couldn’t handle another loss! And he says a bunch of bad stuff is gonna happen. And everybody’s gonna get hurt trying to save me. He said something like… loyalty will be their downfall. I- I- that can’t happen. What if I reset… nobody would have to hurt for me, I’m not worth hurting over! But, no, I wouldn’t do that.”

He’s tense as ever now, and you put a hand on the ground next to him, an invitation. He pauses, then takes it in his. You whisper-

“This time, I’ll protect YOU. I swear.”

He looks up and over at you curiously.

“aren’t you a little scared of that promise?”

You sit your chin on your knees and whisper-

“I’m terrified.”

And you don’t stop him when he holds you close and plants a gentle kiss in your hair. It calms you a lot, actually. You let your fingers drift over the bones in his fingers, watching as they fit perfectly between your own. 

This isn’t the time for questions.  
This isn’t the time for answers.  
No planning.  
No promises.  
Not yet.  
You just savor the feeling of sitting in that wide open field, just being with him.

Because you don’t know how long it can last.

Fin


	11. Finally, Dangit.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is undiluted romantic fluff, (with some dancing and angst for flavor). Enjoy!  
I want to think of this as just kind of a legal thing, by the way. I don't want my babies to grow up this fast, tbh, but like, there has to be happiness somewhere.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You will miss this chapter. Putting everybody in pain is kinda my vibe right now- this was so gosh darn hard to write. I can't even properly express how much work it took not to have somebody get seriously injured physically or mentally. So here you go: enjoy it.   
Next chapter, Chara's reign of terror starts. I'm considering killing someone off. Seriously. This is probably just me self projecting or some other mental crap but like, pppfffftt. I'M FIIINE.  
But I would not object to uplifting comments.  
Sorry for the long notes: go on.

When you wake up the next morning, Sans is gone, but he left a note.

don’t freak. i’m fine, just over at paps for a minute  
call me if you need anything  
love you  
Sans

Something tells you to keep it, and you fold it carefully and stick it in your pocket. Stretching, you stand up. Dream sharing had gone on all night. You grin stupidly at the thought- he’d kissed you, it was so nice. You change and come out to make breakfast. When he isn’t home by the time you’re done, you snag your piece of toast and his plate and go next door. You shudder at the cold snow, but you can mostly ignore it now. Papyrus answers the door, looking giddy. 

“Um, hey, Paps!”  
“Hello! Come in, it’s freezing out there!”

You do, wondering why he’s so happy you’ve arrived. You know what? Why question anything at this point? You drop Sans’ plate on the table and look around for him- oh, there he is, on the couch. 

“Good morning, bonehead.”  
“‘mornin’, sweetheart.”

Mettaton is leaning against the doorframe of the kitchen, watching you enter. He looks sort of…disapproving. He speaks-

“It isn’t my decision, but now that she’s here, I want you to prove she would say yes.”  
“how’m i supposed to prove that?!” Sans says, sitting up a little and shooting Mettaton a look. He has the air of someone who just barely finished an argument- and is still salty.

You look between the two, then back at Papyrus. He seems oblivious of all the fighting- he’s just looking at you excitedly.

“What is happening? What am I saying yes to?” you ask.

Mettaton sighs, puts his hands up and walks out of the room. You look at Sans for an explanation, but he just looks ticked-off. Then an idea lights his face and he sits up off the couch.

“HEY! Metta! lemme prove it!”

He fumbles with his phone for a second, then starts blasting a song- you immediately want to sing. You hold back because you know you’re being watched, but then Sans nudges you.

“they don’t care, knock yourself out.”

At this point, you don’t care what he’s proving or that anybody’s watching- you jump on your feet for your favorite part just as Mettaton walks in-

“Helpleeeeess! Look into your eyes and the sky’s the limit- I’m helpleeeess! Down for the count, and I’m, drowning, and I’m!”

You stand and twirl on one foot, socks easily reducing your friction on the shiny wooden floor. At one point, Sans sings a part-

“-i don’t have a dollar to my name, an acre o’ land, a troop to command, a dollop of fame, all i have’s my honor, a tolerance for pain, a couple-o’-college-credits and my top notch! brain!”

He doesn’t know anything after that, but you pull him to his feet and sing the rest for him. He spins you, picks you up, bouncing and sliding and fitting in with perfect rhythm. Papyrus even comes in and pulls Mettaton into it- he doesn’t exactly appreciate being yanked in, but once he gets going it’s hard to stop him.  
The next song is much different than the first- (Dear Future Husband, Megan Trainor, seriously try it) it’s so fast and rhythmic! You break away from Sans and it eventually becomes something more of a dance battle than a dance. Once he gets a grip on the situation, he comes to realize the song is kind of directed at him. You bounce a lot, moving your shoulders and hips and trying to lip sync the best you can. It kind of feels like you have wings as you slip around. 

“WHOO!” you say when it ends, and you’re left panting. Sans grins smugly at Metta and says-

“if that isn’t enough proof for you, i don’t know what is.”  
“For WHAT?” you ask loudly, half-laughing.

Mettaton raises his eyebrows and answers.

“Darling, Sans wants to-”

Sans tries to stop him, but he finishes anyway.

“-marry you.”  
“damn it,” Sans says. But he looks at you, half-waiting for your reaction.

You’re surprised. You take a few steps back, hands hanging lamely at your sides, looking at him. You open and close your mouth like a fish, but no words come out. You stutter-

“I- I don’t- I mean, I- is he kidding?” you ask.  
“no…um, surprise?”

You’d expected, if this happened, all your nerves and indecision would wash away. It would be obvious, and you’d say yes, and everything would be fine. Apparently: not the case. 

“Are- I mean, are you sure you know what you’re agreeing to? I mean, what if I die again or something? I dunno, are you sure? And I’m, heh, way too young for this, I mean, I dunno…” you trip over the words, leaning against the back of the couch. 

There are three “f”’s of fear. Fight. Flight. Or freeze. For the moment, you froze. But that can’t save anyone forever. Mumbling about needing to go on a walk, you trip out the front door. Papyrus calls, and Sans catches onto your sweater with a hand, and you shrug it off. Something tells you Mettaton is holding onto him, because you hear shouts as you plunge into the snow- it’s shin-deep now. Crunch crunch crunch, says the snow biting at your feet- your shoes are still inside. No point in going back to get them now, so you set into the woods where the snowfall is thinner. Your mind isn’t leading your feet, your mind is still trying to wrap around this.  
‘He knew, right? That I wasn’t ready for this? I told him, right? What’s wrong with the monster way? Is…is he doing this because he thought I’d like it?” The thought brings your feet to a halt.   
If he was doing this, not for him, but for YOU, that would be a relief. It’s not like much would change, anyway. A few legal things, maybe. But it also means you overreacted. He doesn’t see this like a soul bond- that was more serious than this. He sees this as just some rite of passage. He didn’t know it was like this!   
You swivel, ready to go back, then hesitate. He got this idea from Ali, right…Ali put this idea in his head. Hell, she might’ve made it seem like a big, BIG deal. In which case he knew you weren’t ready. And he asked anyway. You stiffen up again and keep walking. Why couldn’t he have just dropped it? That would’ve been fine, you were happy how it was. The cold bites firmly on your feet and arms, and you tuck your fingers into your sleeves and pull them close. No need to have a repeat of last time.  
A little more of walking, and then you stop at a big purple door. The…the door to the Ruins? One knock later and you hear an answer.

“Who is there?”  
“Um, (y/n).”  
“Oh. I am afraid I do not remember you, but your voice sounds familiar. Shall I open the door? It is terribly cold out there, my child.”  
“Yes p-please.”

Toriel opens the door and ushers you inside. The warmth of the Ruins feels so nice… but why are you here? She seems to have similar questions-

“Are you alright? You are Sans’ friend, yes? Why are you here?”  
“I don’t really know. Yes, um, I am. I mean, I’m his soulmate now. I’m fine.”  
“Oh! I did not know Sans had a soulmate. I remember when he would come knock knock-knock jokes on this door. He still does, every now and then. Anyway, you do not want the stories of an old lady like me. Would you like to come in and warm up, my child?”

That is very much what you want. VERY much. But you can’t scare Sans too badly- you did just kind of disappear into the woods. You sit down, wrapping your frost-covered sweater tightly around you and speak.

“I ran away. I- I shouldn’t have done that. I was stupid, he doesn’t want this. But he shouldn’t have done that out of nowhere!”  
“I am afraid I do not understand. Why did you run away? Are they being mean to you?”  
“No! No-no-no, that’s not it, it was me. He asked out of nowhere, or, he didn’t really ask- it’s complicated.”

She sits next to you, back leaning against the old brick wall, and asks.

“That is okay, my child. Would you like advice, or would you like to be cheered up?”  
“Advice, I think. I don’t know what to do.”  
“Then let’s start over. What did he ask that made you run away?”  
“He told me, sort of, that he wanted to marry me. The human way.”  
“Oh, dear,” she says, looking at you with concern in her eyes.  
“You know about human marriages?”   
“Hehe- I do. Do you get it? It was a pun!”

You laugh quietly; it wasn’t half bad, and it feels good to hear someone crack a joke during all of this. But you still wait for the advice to come- god knows you need it.

“Well, anyhow, I know plenty. As the “queen”, I have had to come to terms with lots of human customs when I go to the surface. This human “marriage” is terribly complicated- and a big deal for humans, yes? I do not blame you for getting frightened when you were not ready. Have you considered he did not understand the weight of his question?”  
“Yeah, I thought about that, but we’ve talked about it before. I tried to tell him that I wasn’t exactly ready for this…maybe he thought it’d been long enough a wait. I shouldn’t have run off!”  
“I have done a similar thing, my child. A very long time ago, I left King Asgore after he declared war against humans. Let me tell you from experience- and I personally do not regret my decision, I should add- it gets very lonely very fast. You may stay here as long as you like, but if you regret running in the slightest, I would return. If he cares about you enough to find out about the complications of human customs, he is not worth giving up.”

You think on that- you hadn’t planned to run away forever, but you sure hadn’t thought about having to go home yet. Facing this mess you made. She isn’t wrong, not at all. You already feel lonely, and you can’t imagine life without him, but the very idea of getting married at nineteen scares you. How would a wedding even work?! And this catastrophe that’s coming with Chara and Gaster- this is the worst time he could have asked. Or, um, not asked. The words come out before you have time to think about them-

“Does that mean I should say yes?”  
“That is your decision. But none of this obligates you to say yes.”  
“What…what would you do?”  
“Well, it depends on a lot of things-”

“-how much you love him,”

More than your life.

“-how much he loves you,”

More than his life, unfortunately.

“-if he would stay with you through anything,”

Obviously.

“-if he can support you,”

Yeah, you’ll get by fine.

“And lastly, whether or not he can tell a joke funny enough to make you laugh and cry at the same time.”

You snort- that’s one thing he could never fail to do. You jump when there’s a rapid knocking on the door, loud and sharp. Your first thought is to speak, but Toriel holds up a finger for silence. She answers instead.

“Who is there?”  
“hey, Tori, it’s me, (y/n) ran away, we can’t find her anywhere, is she in there?”

You open your mouth, but Tori just lifts a paw to silence you again. She stands, pulling open the door and hiding you safely behind it. She mouths, “listen” discreetly, then turns to Sans, concern written on her face.

“Oh, dear. I am afraid she has not come this way.”  
“oh. sorry, Tor. i’ll go.”  
“Wait- why did she run away?”  
“i- i was gonna ask her something important, then it kinda got spoiled and she got spooked and ran.”  
“May I ask what it was you were going to ask?”  
“i was gonna- god, i was so stupid, i was gonna ask her to marry me. i mean, one of her friends said it would be a good idea, and i thought she’d think it was nice or somethin’. ’s all so complicated. dammit, i just need to find her. i just thought she’d be happy ‘bout it, i didn’t want to hurt her,” he says, voice quieting.  
“Would you like my help looking for her?”  
“thanks, tori. c’mon, Paps is just back there, we’d love the help.”  
“There will be no need for that. My child, come out, he’s worried sick.”

You stand and come around the side of the door, eyes locked on the ground. He stands there, not really knowing what to do with himself. You say quietly-

“Why would you even want to?”  
“want to what?”  
“Marry me. There’s no point, right?”  
“i thought it’d make you happy, sweetheart. i wouldn’t’ve done it if I didn’t,” he says.   
“I’m happy when you’re happy. Come here, bonehead.”

You hug him gently and lay your head on his shoulder, then whisper it.

“If you want me to say yes, you have to ask.”

He turns his head, surprised. You look at him with a little smile and wait. Once he gets over his shock, he smiles back. 

“you sure you’re down with this?”  
“You aren’t doing it for the human reasons. You’re doing it for ours. That’s what I loved about soul-bonding. Why’s this any different?”  
“whelp. you wanna marry this mess?”  
“If you’ll have this one.”

You laugh- this is HAPPENING. He grins and his left eye flickers to a bright leaf green. Tori claps her hands and smiles her little meek smile.   
You pull up his hood and kiss him under it, pulling him into it by his T-shirt. He softens considerably after that. When he finally pulls back, he’s blue in the face and smiling goofily. You grin wider than you even knew you could. Papyrus walks around the corner, calling for Sans, when he sees the purple door. Your whole scene is lit up happily, and he’s already smiling by the time he gets over.

“What is happening? (Y/n), where have you-”

Before he can finish, you realize it- he really is your brother now! Not that he wasn’t before, but now you can say it legally and everything. You pump your fists in the air and run over.

“PAPS! YOU’RE MY BRO NOW!”

He looks from Sans to you, then back. The realization dawns on him and he pumps his fists in the air, too. 

“YOU’RE MY SISTER NOW!!”  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Later that night, you’re still laughing to yourself. He was so happy. Once nightfall came, you’d started to get scared, of course. But Sans’ smile and still-green eye remind you to shake it off. He’s so happy- and that’s enough.  
When Ali finds out, she just smirks-

“I knew he loved you.”  
“Duh, more importantly, you wanna be there?”  
“Duh. How’re you guys doing it?”  
“Going to Asgore and letting him officiate. We’ll have a few friends, but not everybody. Nothing big.”  
“’kay. Seriously dude- good for you. You’re super lucky. But-” she leans forward, smiling wide, and stage whispers- “He’s lucky you fell down that hole in the first place, sooo…” she makes an “i dunno” noise and you laugh.   
Sans opens his green eye and grins from the couch. 

“god knows what woulda happened if she hadn’t.”  
You smile; “I can’t even imagine.”  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
A few days later, you’re standing next to Sans in front of Asgore, who is reading from a book aloud, showing you the right things to say and having you repeat them. Your friends are stationed a few feet away watching. It isn’t many of your friends, but it’s enough. Paps is crying a little bit, but he has the widest smile on out of everyone here. Mettaton has a smile on, too, and he looks happy to have been proven wrong. Undyne looks like she wants to break something she’s so happy, even though she doesn’t fully know why. Alphys is watching you like an anime- all happy and starry-eyed. Ali looks smug, of course. Her “i knew it” face mixed with her “YES” face make quite the combo. Tori is crying, smiling supportively through her tears.   
Sans had flat out refused to wear a suit, and you’d agreed. A few slight upgrades to his normal outfit look more than formal. Slippers to trainers, basketball shorts to pants, t-shirt to a button-up shirt, and his hoodie. You’d dressed up, though, at the girls’ insisting. A blue dress that was kind of puffy at the bottom, and little black flats. When you’d walked out wearing it, everybody got all teary and excited.   
You’d never expected that eleven years ago, when you ran away to this mountain, that it would lead here. But it has. And you’re so happy it has. When all the vows are finally over, you yank him into a kiss. He smiles through it. When you break away, the first words you say stick in your mind forever.

“I win, universe. I win.”  
“pretty sure I won.”  
“Pfft. I love you, bonehead.”  
“love you, sweetheart.”

Papyrus comes up and hugs his brother tightly, and Sans hugs him back.

“Oh, brother! I am so happy for you!”  
“thanks, bro. ‘m happy you’re happy.”  
“Sans, one thing. Look at me,” he gets down so he can look his brother in the eyesockets, and you watch from a few feet away. “Your first priorities need to be you, and then (y/n), now. Take care of yourself, take care of her, and then let everything else come. Including me. I think we both know I’m typically safer than she is.”  
“heh. ok. love ya, bro.”  
“I love you, too, brother.”

He comes over to you next. You squeal, and then he squeals, and then you hug him, half-screaming the words-

“‘SUP, BRO?!”  
“HELLO, SISTER!”

Sans watches, amused and happy. His eye won’t stop glowing green.   
A thousand congratulations later from everybody, you just want to go home. This princess dress was nice for a minute, but not as nice as a pair of sweatpants and a hoodie. There’s a split second between conversations where you whisper to him-

“Hey, how do we get outta here?”  
“i was just gonna ask. maybe ‘Dyne breaks something? all this standing…”  
“I know, right? Wait, Ali’ll know, where is she?”

Luckily, right about then she walks up behind you and whispers;

“Gotcha. Sans, pick her up and run off to the car. Just drive home. It’s a wedding thing, promise.”  
“what, abandoning everybody?”  
“Basically. Party goes on without ‘cha, don’t worry.”  
“whelp, c’mon then.”

You jump up onto his back. It wasn’t what he had in mind, but it’s so random he just laughs and lets you. Ali smirks and salutes, and Sans blips outside to the car. As you drive away, you see everyone run to the entrance of New Home to watch you pull out, and Alphys screams the words you didn’t realize you’d missed.

“Y’ALL ARE MY OTP!!”  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Finally, you’ve scrubbed all of Mettaton’s expertly applied makeup off of your face and shimmied into some sweatpants and a t-shirt. Sans is back to normal, too. Grillby comes over with a plate of congratulatory snickerdoodles for you and a carton of ketchups for Sans. As he leaves, he pauses-

“I keep meaning to tell you this- don’t ever lose him. He has a lot going on. You probably know that by now, though. I guess what I’m trying to say is that underneath all of that, he’s a really great guy. You’re very lucky.”  
“Don’t I know it. Thanks, Grillby.”  
“Oh, and my gift to you, SANS,” he says, glaring his bright eyes and turning on him, “is scrapping your tab. You’re starting over. You don’t need to be married with three. hundred. thousand. G. in. debt.”  
“woah, really? thanks, Grillbz,” Sans says, sockets wide (and more than a little guilty).

Soon he leaves, and you turn to the plate, eyes shining brightly. Once you’re done stuffing yourself with cookies, you curl up on the couch and just enjoy feeling full and comfy and lazy. Sans comes over and plops next to you. 

“there we go. all that formality was never quite our thing, huh?”  
“Nope. C’mere, you’re so warm.”

He chuckles and pulls you into his chest. 

“that good?”  
“Perfect. Mmm… warm.”  
“you’re the greatest, sweetheart.”  
“Meh, maybe. I love you, bonehead.”  
“love ya, sweetheart. night.”  
“Night.”

You fall asleep like that, covered in cookie crumbs and snoring softly. For the first time in ages, you don’t dream. Nothing interrupts. Sans’ soul swells when he looks down at you- you’re so happy. And you’re safe. You have more than a few nicks and scratches, but you’re happy. 

And that’s enough.

Fin


	12. Soul Touching? Oh, wait, frick-

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter, but I wanted to make a point:  
I genuinely enjoy writing romance.  
However, to those out there pushing me to "go further", (ya pervs) this is as far as I go before I draw the line. I'm not gonna lie, this WAS fun to write. Not gonna deny it. In fact, I might write some of this again. But there's a frickin' line.  
He. is. a. freakin'. skeleton. Guys.  
Lighten up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, next chapter, crap gets real, but I needed to put this chapter out there, along with a quick PSA. 
> 
> I'm a serious defender of the standpoint that Chara is innocent and the player is the only evil one in the original game. However, I don't write that way because every story needs a relentless villain. So- here we are. Sorry, Chara defense group. I'm with you, though.

“you wanna do something? i mean, if it isn’t too weird,” Sans says, when the credits roll on the anime you were watching. You smirk.  
“I guarantee whatever you’re about to suggest is less weird than anything we’ve ever done. Hit me.”  
“well, i dunno about that, but ok. um, so there’s this thing some monsters do when they’re really close, and i dunno, i thought you might wanna try it.”  
“Sure. What is it?”

It’s been a few weeks since the wedding. You refuse to think of him as your husband, though. It feels like too grown-up a word for what you’ve got with him. Not that it isn’t more powerful than any human marriage, but the word just doesn’t feel right on your tongue. You know whatever Chara has in mind has to come eventually, but it hasn’t yet. And you feel safe right now, so you don’t pay it much mind.  
You’re curled up against him, cat-like, on the couch. You look at him, intrigued by his offer. You wonder what he’s suggesting, how it translates to anything you know about. He squirms uncomfortably, and he’s blushing like crazy. He stutters through the sentence-

“um, do you want to, uh, try soul touching?”  
“You guys really need more creative names for your magic stuff, huh? What’s it mean?”  
“um, monsters can touch each others’ souls, er, physically, and it, heh, feels nice.”

Oh. OH. You feel your face go hot as you realize what he must mean by this. “Feels nice…”…oh, GEEZ. He tries to cover when he sees how surprised you look.

“uh, heh, we don’t have to do it, i shouldn’ta said anything, that was stupid, sorry-” you cut in-  
“No, no, that’s okay. I, um, I guess I’m just a little surprised that you’d want to do anything like that with ME.”  
“well, yeah, but not if you don’t want to.”  
“I mean, I want to try, at least. Okay, so, how’s it work? Do we need to get off of the couch?”

He nods, still glowing cyan in the face. When he doesn’t just shortcut into his bedroom like you expect, you stand, stretch, and beckon for him to follow you. You step up the stairs and wait on him to come. He does, eventually, once he realizes that he was supposed to move. You smile reassuringly as he climbs the stairs beside you. Once in the room, he sits on the little bed and leans against the wall. You crawl next to him. He doesn’t offer an explanation until he presses his hands to his sternum and coaxes out the little blue heart. You let out a little “oooh” of awe. You’ve only ever really seen his soul through his ribcage, never anything like this.  
This is HIM. All of him. For real. Without his soul and the magic inside it, he’d wouldn’t be anything but dust. This is…how did he put it to you when you were little? The ‘culmination of his being’. That was it. You realize that you’ve been quietly staring at it, and you get out some words.

“It’s beautiful…so, um, can I touch it? Like, with my hands? How does this work?”  
“thanks. oh, um, yeah, you just touch it…heh. um, be gentle, this can get kinda intense if you’re rough with it.”  
“Oh. Okay,” you reach out your hands, inwardly hoping there isn’t some etiquette for this you don’t know about. 

Even before you touch it, you feel how warm it is, just like he always is. Well, no wonder, seeing as it IS him. You have a strange urge to hug it, but something tells you that that won’t go down well. Gently, he’d said.  
Tentatively, you caress it in one hand, cupping it like a firefly, and look at him. He’s blue as you’ve ever seen him, and now he has one hand gripped tightly on the mattress. He has a goofy grin on his face- okay. So that worked.

His soul feels kind of like you’d expect it to feel. Warm and bright and even a little soft on the outside. You prod a little bit with your fingertip. Your eyes dart back up at him when his breathing changes, fast and flustered. After a few more minutes of gentle pushing and prodding and holding, he looks as happy as heck. You don’t really want to get too intense or anything, but he seems to be fine with this. He laughs in between your little touches, the same way he does between kisses sometimes. An idea pops into your mind, and you plant a little kiss on top of the glowing magical heart. He REALLY melts at that, and you have to fight the urge to laugh.  
His eyelights switch to hearts, and you pepper his soul with light kisses, nothing too deep, worried its almost squishy texture will stick to your lips. He lifts his shaking hands to yours, and you expect him to pull yours away, but he just wraps them around yours. Oh- he's trying to make you hold his soul more firmly. You do, and the reaction is immediate- he melts, blue all over, shaking happily. As your grip tightens, he whimpers.  
At the noise, your face lights up and you back away from his soul. You let go entirely. It zips back into his chest, but even so, it takes a minute for his head to clear. 

“mm- sorry, geez, that was good.” he says, still panting and trying to blink the hearts out of his eyes.  
“Heh. Yeah,” how are you supposed to tell him that the sight of him like that made you super uncomfortable? “Um, sorry, it started to get a little, uh, weird, so I stopped. I mean, YOU aren’t weird, that wasn’t- but um, I dunno.”  
“hey, don’t worry about it. damn, that felt good.”  
“So…um, weird question.”  
“shoot.”  
“Can YOU do that to ME?”

He looks embarrassed, but he chuckles.

“not like that, no. human souls are a lot more powerful than monster ones, and they don’t really come out, anyway. they only come out when a human dies, and then, you know,” he makes a little explosion noise, and you nod. 

You can’t help but feel slightly disappointed. You have to admit- he looked like he was having fun. You blush at the memory of his face when you’d kissed his soul; he was so melt-y and adorable. He must see the look in your eyes, because he leans forward and kisses you gently, then puts on one of those crap-eating grins that make you laugh.

“though, there are other ways to get you excited.”

You pull him into another kiss. He kisses down your neck and you giggle when he buries his face there. In fact, you blush wildly and pull him in.  
You tilt his head up with a hand so he has to look you in the eyes, then plant kisses everywhere but his smile, which you save for last. When you finally come up for air, you don’t break away entirely, but let his forehead rest against yours as you sigh contentedly. 

“Geez.” Is all you can manage.  
“yeah, huh?” he gets out.

A few minutes of happy silence, you start to get tired. It’s late, and that was kind of a lot. He notices your eyelids start to droop and he yanks down the sheets so you can climb under. He climbs in, too, and you notice his eye go green again. It makes you laugh softly, and he grins. 

“glad you’re happy, sweetheart.”  
“I’m happy you’re happy,” you say.  
“then this’ll work out fine.”

He hums softly as you fall asleep, lulled to rest by the shape of his body against yours and the gentle thrum of his soul.  
You can’t say you DON’T want to try that again, but certainly not right now. You’re so tired- and so happy. He smiles down at you, not his usual grin, but his soft one. You don’t see it, but his sockets crinkle up at your gently sleeping form next to him.  
He was never a hundred percent sure- always in the 99% range, sure, but never COMPLETELY sure that you wouldn’t try to hurt him if he got vulnerable around you. Revealing his soul was a risky move, or would be with anybody else. But you’d proven tonight that you wouldn’t do anything to hurt him, not ever. Not on purpose. Hell, you wouldn’t even go too far with just touching his soul, you definitely wouldn’t bring yourself  
to hurt it. He sings quietly as he strokes your hair back out of your eyes…

“and the universe  
will never be the same.  
i’m glad you came.  
i’m glad you came.”

His soul lurches with happiness, and he settles in to sleep.

Fin


	13. Their Loyalty Will Be Their Downfall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Humans are turning.  
Chara is watching.  
But now, the first move of many.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I warned you.  
I warned you.  
I warned you.  
Enjoy!!

The next day all you can feel is tense. You don’t know why- it just feels like something bad is going to happen, and you can’t shake the feeling. It isn’t last night, was it? No, it can’t be. Normally you’d worry you were just getting too stressed, but you can see it in Sans’ eyelights- he feels it, too.

“you feel that? like, nerves?” he asks.  
“Yeah…hold up… turn on the news, the human news,” you say, walking quickly over to the old TV to turn it on yourself. “Just a gut feeling…oh, geez.”

The first thing you see on the screen is the mayor and his little court of judges, giving a speech. It consists of three points:  
Monsters are dangerous.  
Regulations regarding them are to be tightened.  
And if a monster is found to have any infractions on their record, even minor ones, they will be thrown in prison immediately and indefinitely.

The next news station you flip to has a different angle of the same speech- it must be live right now. The third has the same thing. The fourth is radically defending monster kind and encouraging people to stand up for any monsters they see being maltreated. At least somebody is saying something!  
You stand and begin to pace. You feel the same kind of pulsing anger you remember feeling when you read those stupid women’s magazines. They can’t DO this! Wasn’t it only ten years ago that they were just freed?! And now it’s just a repeat of the first war all over again.  
The thought brings you up cold. No. If there’s a repeat of the war, the monsters WILL lose. All these monsters who have just lived long enough to see the sky will fight to the death. You turn to look at Sans, who seems to have just come to the same realization. His eyelights are dead in his sockets.  
At the sight of all that hope knocked out of him, your anger reignites. Not at him, of course- at the humans. You put your hands on his shoulders and say it, your voice shaking with rage-

“I bet if we go to the surface right now, like, RIGHT NOW, we can dunk him before he leaves the podium.”  
“we wouldn’t make it in time. not to mention that’d just get me arrested.”  
“I hate them! All of them! They can’t do this, they CAN’T, not to you! They can’t…” your voice drops off hopelessly, and then you look back at the television. 

You look at the mayor’s lined face. He put so many monster protection laws in place at first, why would he scrap all that with such a harsh law?

“ hey, ’s ok, sweetheart. we can do this.”  
“God, I need to break something. Can we go break something?”  
“nothin’ to break, but we could try a little sparring if you want.”  
“Perfect. Lemme grab a stick.”

You yank on your shoes, anger clouding your brain and eyes. You snap a thick stick off of a tree and wait for Sans. But wait…sparring is fighting. You’ve never done it before, though you know what it is. You drop the stick to your side and stare at it blankly. Sans comes out on the front porch in time to see you chuck it into the woods. You climb the stairs back to the porch, arms crossed.

“I can’t fight you,” you huff.  
“thought you might say that,” he says, casually.  
“God, I said I wanted to fight you…”  
“you were mad, ’s ok. i’m STILL mad. you know what always helps me when i’m mad?”

You sigh and ask-

“Is it puns?”  
“nope.”  
“Is it sleeping?”  
“heh, not usually.”  
“What is it?”  
“c’mere.”

You let him wrap his arms around you and pull you into a hug. It feels good, but you’re still tense. The realization hits- the tense feeling didn’t go away after the news! Unfortunately, you don’t have much time to think on it.  
Suddenly, he grabs your hands and pulls you through a shortcut. Your stomach drops at the unexpected movement, but when you reappear you’re deep in the woods around Snowdin. He sits on the ground in the snow, leaning against a tree, and flips his hoodie up. You shiver- why are you even here? He passes over his hoodie and asks-

“you recognize this place?”  
“Um…oh. OH. Why are we here?”

As you turn full circle, you recognize the clearing. Burned trees, craters, torn branches- you think you even recognize some torn fabric. This is where you killed Chara, nearly died of frostbite. The whole feeling makes your brain switch from anger to grief, and you can’t put a finger on why. You certainly aren’t mourning Chara…maybe you’re mourning yourself?  
When you turn back to look at Sans, he shrugs and summons a bone. It’s not an attack, because he touches it with ease and holds it out to you, but you still back away from it. 

“hey, it’s just magic, it won’t hurtcha. sometimes i come out here at night and beat things up. helps get my mind off things. here, go ahead.”

You take the porcelain white bone in your hands, and he summons a wall of them in front of you. A word of caution comes from his lazily sitting figure a few feet away-

“don’t touch those with your hands, those are attacks. just hit ‘em with the thing.”

One swing later, they all pop and crack and crash into pieces, then disappear. You have to admit, it’s satisfying. He summons more and more, letting you swing away at them- sometimes he makes little dummies, or puts them in circles so you can swing 360 degrees to hit them all. Occasionally an attack will break in a way that sends little pieces at you, leaving you with little nicks and bruises- but you turn down sans’ offers to heal them. They feel good, like a physical way of letting out your anger and pain.  
At one point he stands up and hits a few with you, which feels nice. He leaps on platforms which he summons under his feet; for a not-normally-active kind of guy, he’s surprisingly agile. You laugh as he flips and breaks a bunch of bones katana-style. 

“Better not show those skills to Alphys, or she’ll have you in a robo-mech in no time!” you shout.  
“don’t plan on doing this again anytime soon,” he admits.  
“So you’re just showing off?”  
“yup.”

You laugh again, louder this time. Though this all feels really fun, the tension still sits at your core, poking you. You ignore it and wipe all sign of it off of your face. 

“what, was that humerus?”  
“Sure tickled my funny bone!”  
“you look like you’re havin’ a skele-ton of skele-fun with my skele-puns,” he says, grinning.

You have to bend backwards so an attack doesn’t hit you right in the face- he tries to keep them away from you more carefully now, but you stumble backwards and fall on your back. Luckily there weren’t any attacks near where you fell, but it still knocks the air out of your lungs.  
You hear the attacks vanish with a pop, and Sans runs over to see if you’re okay. You can’t move or breathe because the fall knocked the wind out of you, and you can’t even reassure him for a second.

“oh, geez, did i hit you, are you ok? oh, geez, oh geez, are you breathing?!”

His eyelights are tiny pinpricks of fear as he leans over you. You use the tiny bit of air you’ve managed to get back to force out a few words-

“Fine-*hhh* just- need a sec,” you let him help you sit up against a tree, and the tension in your core reaches a breaking point. Sans feels it too, and he says the words you want to say, but can’t.

“something’s happening…we need to go see Paps…d’you feel that?”  
“Yeah…shortcut, hurry,” you wheeze.

You get the feeling it won’t do your struggling lungs any favors, but you grab his arm. He pops into Paps’ house. Papyrus is holding Impact, and standing on one side of the room, while Mettaton is standing on the other. You can’t see anything wrong with it at first, but then you register the worry on Pap’s face and the way Metta is malfunctioning. Little magenta and red sparks riddle his body, and he looks like he might explode. Papyrus speaks first-

“Oh, Sans, (y/n)! I am glad you came when you did- Metta started to glow all red and strange just a minute ago and I don’t know what’s happened.”  
“bro, i need you to go upstairs. this could get ugly,” Sans says, propping you up against a table leg carefully and standing in front of the shaking robot.  
“But-” he protests, but Sans interrupts firmly.  
“please.”  
“What’s wrong, brother? Do you know what’s happening?!”  
“i…i think it might be Chara.”  
“Wh- NO! Metta, you have to fight! Let him go, he didn’t do anything wrong!” he shouts.

He steps forward to try to hold his soulmate, but you trip over yourself to hold him back. If Mettaton was really under Chara’s control, he might hurt your brother-in-law. You lean against him, trying to serve as a shield while still trying to catch your breath. He looks down at you worriedly, but you can see the frustration and determination in his eyesockets, too. 

“Sister, I need you to step aside for a moment so I can see if Metta is alright.”  
“I don’t want him to hurt you on accident, Paps. Especially with Impact.”

Impact, as if on cue, asks you in a confused voice-

“Is the girl with the red eyes being mean to Ton-Ton?”

Papyrus yelps with surprise and looks down at his son, but you just nod and respond-

“She’s being very mean, Impact. Puncle Sans knows what to do, but it’ll take lot…and it’s going to take a trip to Alphys.”  
“Why?!” Papyrus asks, but his question is answered fairly quickly.

There’s the white-blue flash of bone attacks, and Metta’s robot body fractures and smokes. Out of it floats his little ghost, who flickers back and forth from red to magenta as he fights Chara’s control. You realize that Sans can’t hurt Mettaton into freeing him- he’s really just a ghost at his core. You can’t hurt ghosts. Soon you see that Chara wins- he calls for little kiss-throwing minions and magenta bombs, which tear up the decorations he so carefully put together. Luckily, Sans can dodge fine, and keeps up his attacks, hoping to hurt the little ghost in any way in order to free him- nothing hits, of course. Papyrus is calling out for both Sans and Chara to ‘stop trying to hurt Metta’, but you just dig your heels in the carpet; he doesn’t understand. The red-eyed ghost prepares a huge bomb, the kind that always killed you when you were little, when you see a flash of purple and white, then darkness.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
It’s a few minutes before you realize you aren’t hurt. The tension in your body is going to make you explode. You sit up- Metta’s ghost is doing laps and fretting in his little high-pitched ghost voice, trying to find out if everyone’s okay. A look at Papyrus confirms that he’s alright, if not a little scuffed up, and so is Impact. You’re in stunned silence- what happened? Where’s Chara? Sans is sitting next to you, dazed and confused…but how did everyone get sat on the floor? Probably that bomb… but then why isn’t the kitchen destroyed? Why aren’t YOU destroyed? What was that purple thing? And. Wait. What is that?!  
You crawl over to a huddled purple mass in the corner- it’s Ali. You thought she left two nights ago! Why is she here? You ignore the questions when you help her into a sitting position. A huge burn has cut deep into her chest, and it’s red with blood. You cry out-

“Sans, it’s Ali, oh god, come here, she’s hurt!”

She moans and winces, and you realize- she must have seen the bomb and jumped on it to try to block the blast. She coughs a spray of blood down her front, then grins toothily. It reminds you uncomfortably of Sans, who stumbles over next.  
Her quiet words are barely audible, and you have to lean over to hear them-

“Don’t bother. Caster’s waiting on me.”  
“NO, nonono, you gotta stay with us, Sans can heal you, just hold in there!”  
“I’ll be good. Cas’s waiting on me.”

She feebly pushes Sans’ hands away, but with all the magic he’s used over the past few hours, he can’t heal very well, anyway. His blue flame flickers and dies, and he can’t reignite it. Her soul swells a dark cyan and lifts out of her chest- it’s so bright you have to look away- and then it shatters. You press your hands over your mouth and sob, no…this…this can’t happen, it can’t. Sans is looking at her empty body with blank sockets. He looks numb, but he twitches to look back as if she’d be standing behind him. Papyrus comes over then, getting over how dazed he is, holding Impact in his arms. When he sees Ali, he cries out, but he knows that no amount of healing will help. Impact is the first one to get anything out.

“We din’ get hurted cause’ her.”  
“’s right, kiddo.” Sans says quietly. “’s right.”  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
You’re home, but you haven’t exactly registered it. You’re sitting rigidly on the couch, not feeling anything at all. Sans is in your room, presumably to do the same. Papyrus has taken to sitting on the front porch and staring into space. Impact is quiet for once, but he curls up into his dad’s warmth and tries to make his Pappy feel better. Metta is over at the Hotland lab getting a new body (and freaking out). Chara watches the chaos she’s caused, silent and invisible. She knows if Sans could see her he’d probably try to blast her to pieces, but that wouldn’t work, anyway.  
The numbness courses through you, but you can still register as the bedroom door opens. A glance up confirms its Sans. The sight of him makes whatever paper-thin dam inside you shatter. The pain crashes on you suddenly, and you’re crying, pulling your knees in and losing yourself in the hurt of it all. You can’t even look at him, but when he pulls you close on the couch, you don’t hesitate to cry into his hoodie. Soon you cry yourself dry, and you’re left staring into space. He starts talking quietly-

“first we lose all our rights and then…this.” He sighs painfully. “you know what, though, i saw somethin’ after her soul came out. she stood up, she was all blue and shiny, and then she walked away. she looked happy to go. heh…i know that feeling. she was with Caster in the end, right? she didn’t want to be healed. she wanted to go… still hurts for us, though.”

Suddenly you feel another hand on your back. It doesn’t feel loving or gentle, just painfully casual. You look up, ready to be angry at someone, then do a double take. There isn’t anyone there. Probably just your mind playing tricks on you. Really, you only know one person who would be that nonchalant while you’re in this state, and she just died.  
There’s a voice, and you know you’re imagining it, but it feels real. Sans doesn’t seem to hear it.

“Hey, scrub, stop moping and help me out.”

You mutter at the voice to go away, and it just sounds annoyed.

“Dude, gimme a hand. I just died, for god’s sake.”  
“What?” you say, eyes darting around the room.

Sans looks at you with concern. You don’t notice him. Ali?!

“Where are you?” you ask.  
“Um, I dunno. Here, wait, can you see me now?”

Ali is standing in the kitchen, just like Sans described her. She has a glittering blue aura and she looks just as surprised as you. You stumble over until you’re right in front of her- when you reach out to touch her, though, your hand goes right through. 

“Woah,” you both say at the same time. You shake your head firmly, blinking.

“No, you DIED for us, how are you here?!”  
“Somethin’ kept me here. Caster’s here, too, but I dunno if he can actually do all the stuff I can. Why’d Metta go all evil, again-”

Before she can continue, Sans cuts in.

“hey, sweetheart, you ok? who’re you talking to?” He sounds concerned for your mental health- no- your sanity as a whole. You frown at Ali, then at Sans. You point at her and look at him.

“Um, you can’t see her?”  
“no…who?”  
“Ali! She’s like, a ghost thing! Wait, what are you, anyway? Why can’t he see you?” you ask, turning back to your shining friend.

Ali shrugs.

“No clue what I am. Here, lemme try this.” She shimmers a little more brightly and Sans stumbles backwards-

“SHIT,” he says, staring at Ali in shock.  
“I- I know,” you say, “We thought we’d lost you, Al, we’re so happy you’re back and everything, but why are you here? And why are you like this?”  
“Again: no clue. Why’d Metta do that, again?! Where is he, anyway, I need to give him a piece of my mind!”

That’s the Ali you remember, and you swipe at your eyes. She isn’t here, but she’s HERE. She sighs melodramatically and grins.

“Fine. I’ll leave the robot alone. Not sure he was himself, anyway. Wait, was that Chara?”  
“Like, HERE, or who took over Metta?!” you ask, looking around the room.  
“Oh, that little bitch is here,” she says, spitting out the words, “She’s just not showing her face. I can see her fine. I get the feeling she can’t do anything right now. Keeps smiling, the creep. But she, like, possessed Metta, right? That’s why he made that huge frickin’ bomb. Glad I came when I did, actually. See, I forgot my phone. But the door was locked, so I thought I’d come over to see if you were over at Paps. You were- I saw through the windows that Metta was going crazy, and the door was a little open, so I tried to stop it and-” she shrugs, “died. Heh, you little scrubs woulda died if I hadn’t checked. Sucks for you guys, I guess, but I kinda like being dead. It feels really nice, actually.”  
“I mean, it’s good to know that you’re okay. T-thank you, by the way, we would’ve- but we didn’t. We didn’t die. I’m sorry…” you feel more tears press at your eyes, but you try to push them back for her.  
“Don’t be. I’m good,” she goes to hug you, but phases right through. “Oh. Um, you get the idea.”

Sans is watching your exchange with a mixture of shock and curiosity, but he finally manages a few words.

“so…if YOU’RE a ghost-thing, and CHARA is a ghost-thing- well, wait, Chara is more of a demon. does that make you a demon? anyway, can you fight her, or drag her off or something?”  
“I think I could try to, but just looking at her I know she’s stronger than me. I’d lose.”  
“oh.”  
“Here, lemme see if she’ll talk to me. Hey, creep! What’d you go and kill me for?”

Silence, but Ali’s transparent eyes widen.

“Um…creep has a knife. Big knife. Says she’ll leave you guys alone. Um, on a condition.”  
“What?” you and Sans say in unison.  
“You “reset”. Wait, isn’t that that thing where you start everything over since you fell down here? You can’t do that! I mean, sure, I get to be alive again, but then you’ll be, like, eight. I’ll be twelve, geez. No way!”

You look away. You’d considered it, actually. After she died. Sans sees the guilt on your face and knows. Not that you’d ever really do it…right? He tenses.

“yeah, no way…huh, sweetheart?”  
“Right. Right, yeah,” you say, staring at the floor. “I mean…it’s not like she’d actually leave us alone…”

The idea that she just MIGHT is enough to make you hesitate. Ali frowns.

“You wouldn’t frickin’ dare. If not for him, then at least for me. I like being dead. I get Caster here. I don’t feel anything. I will never have to pee again. Think about the things people could do if they didn’t have to pee! A lot of things, dude. I’m happy here. Sure, I don’t know how to leave, but I think if I do it’ll be pretty sweet.”  
“what?” Sans asks. “what do you mean you can’t leave?”  
“I mean I can’t leave. Like, I know there’s somewhere farther than here, I just…” she hesitates, “I just have to get there.”

You think, and step back a little so you can sit on the couch. Some part of you legitimately feels glad. Ali was never really happy after Caster died, and now she’s going somewhere where she can be happy. And that makes you happy. But mostly you’re worried. Chara is always watching you; and then there’s Ali. She can’t move on…what’s keeping her here?  
You snap your fingers and stand. Gerson will know! That old tortoise has to know SOMETHING! 

“Gerson’ll know!” you say excitedly. Ali looks confused. “He’s this really old tortoise dude who lives in Waterfall. Sans, have you recharged enough to pop over there and get him?”  
“um, i think i can make it most of the way there,” he says. “but i’ll have to bring him back on foot, so it might take me a minute.” 

You squeeze his hand and say quietly-

“Hey, don’t wear yourself out. We’ve had enough happen today.”

He smiles softly, then lets go of your hand, salutes, and pops away. Ali grins when he leaves- even dead, she can’t help but tease you.

“God, you guys are SUCH lovebirds.”  
“Isn’t it great?” you say, laughing.  
“If great is borderline sappy, yes. Incredible. Can’t say I’m not a hypocrite, though. Man, I wish I had a little while longer so we could play Couple Truth or Dare. That’d be sweet,” she puts her chin in a hand, and her elbow sits on some invisible table.

“I’m really gonna miss you,” you admit. “You totally sure you don’t want me to reset?”

Her face looks shocked, even a little indignant.

“Positive. You can’t do that to Sans, girl! He… I dunno. I think it’d break him. Not to mention being married to an eight year old is kinda illegal.”  
“Yeah, you’re right. I just hate losing my friends.” you sigh and pull at a loose string on one of your socks, not meeting her transparent eyes. 

A change of subject is probably a good idea. “You know, you might think this is interesting. Right before you died, your soul came out of you. It was blue. I think that’s the color for Justice or Patience or something. Same color as Sans’.”  
“Well, I don’t exactly pride myself on my overwhelming patience, eh? Probably Justice, then. Wonder what yours is,” she sounds mildly interested. You shrug.  
“Red and Green, Sans says. He can see it when he Judges people. Red is Determination, and green is Kindness. I kinda wish I had something tougher, but supposedly it’s just who I am. Sorry. That’s probably boring.”

She laughs and blows some hair out of her eyes. 

“Nah. Cool, actually. Cas’s green, so that makes sense. I didn’t know people had different colors, actually.”  
“Yeah…hey, quick question?”  
“Shoot.”  
“Is there anything you want to do here before you; you know. Pass on or whatever?”  
“I kinda just want to see Paps and Metta. Just tell ‘em I’m okay. Where are they, anyway?”

Your face lights up and you jump to your feet. Papyrus doesn’t know yet! You tell her to hold on and you run outside. You call to Papyrus on the next porch over, and he walks over solemnly, but confused as to the elated expression on your face. 

“What is happening? Are you alright?”  
“Paps, it’s Ali! She’s in here, she’s like, a ghost!”  
“. . .What?!”

He rushes past you, still holding Impact, who is squealing happily. When Ali sees him, she grins happily. Papyrus tries to hug her, but phases through. 

“Sorry, Paps. No hugs, I think.” she quips.  
“I DO NOT MIND! IT IS JUST SO WONDERFUL TO HAVE YOU BACK! RIGHT, IMPACT?” he yells in his naturally loud voice. Impact ghosts, and in his little corporeal form, he manages to give Ali a solid hug. She really appreciates it. 

After a few minutes of happy talking and calling Mettaton to tell him the news, Sans shows up with Gerson. The old tortoise steps up and gives Ali a look of discernment that quiets everyone. Though, Sans and Ali just look annoyed. Finally, he speaks-

“You shouldn’t have died when ya did, eh, kid?”

Ali shrugs and matches this “wisdom” with some of her own.

“We all have to at some point. So, technically speaking, this is exactly as long as I should have lived. But I’m kinda wanting to move on, so, um, any tips?”

Gerson laughs his weird laugh and hobbles forward, inspecting her. He finally says-

“Well, only reason you’d get held back, that I can think of, is if y’ur soul still needed to do somethin’. Any ideas?”  
“I guess I wanted to tell Metta that I’m okay. He didn’t really mean to kill me. I mean, I’m still kinda pissed, but not at him. At that creep,” she gestures with a thumb at an empty corner of the ceiling. 

Gerson grunts appreciatively. 

“Oh, this happened a lot durin’ the War. Human souls hangin’ around because’a unfinished business. You see your friend and you should be fine. Good luck, kid.”  
“Thanks,” is all she says. 

He waddles out. Metta arrives soon (with Alphys in tow) after your earlier call. 

When the two lock eyes, Mettaton cries little ghost tears and apologizes profusely, saying he never meant for this to happen and he’s so sorry he couldn’t fight Chara off. Ali reassures him easily-

“Hey, it’s okay. I’m kinda enjoying being dead, actually. But- oh, dang.” She looks down and her body is fading, fizzling into darkness. She salutes and manages to direct some words at you. “Imma miss you, punk. Don’t show up too soon, though. Um…bye.”

And then she’s gone.

You can’t help but cry a little, though you know you’re crying for you and not for her. Everybody leaves except Sans, who curls up with you and plays old Disney movies until you’ve cried yourself out again. He murmurs quietly when your sniffling stops.

“you wanna go to bed early? we’ve had a long day.” 

You nod, and he pops into the bedroom again. When you’re curled close enough to him that his soul is practically warming your nose, you shake a little. Not cry-shaking, no. It’s kind of painful, and you feel drained when it goes away. Sans holds your hands in his and you ask-

“Do you know what that was?”  
“yeah. your soul cracked. has a lot of ‘em, actually, but this one just hurts ‘cause it’s new. they go away with time. i’m here, you’re good.”

Normally that would scare the wits out of you, but you’re too tired. You slip into a dreamless sleep and let Sans heal you. The nicks and scratches should be easy to fix, but it takes him some time with all the magical exertion he’s used today. Your body shakes softly as your soul tries to heal, but it can’t. Normal healing doesn’t work on emotions.  
He holds you as close as he can without waking you up. The thought that he might have lost you, instead of Ali, today is almost too much for him to bear- he fights back his tears, though. Deep breaths. Stay strong. You’ll heal, and you’ll be back to your fighting, positive, awesome self. Just give it some time.  
Fin


	14. Insomniac Nights

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sans can't sleep. Way to go, insomnia.
> 
> Yay, fellow anxiety attack folk! *sarcastic jazz hands*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Im taking a few days hiatus on this work to...  
work on a different one.  
I had a really fun idea with a lot less angst and there's absolutely no way to tie it in here. Solution? I'm just gonna say it's fluff based off this one. Should be out sometime soon. 
> 
> Thanks for tuning in, my explainers and entertainers, but now, I have to tune out. (anybody catch that reference?? anyone??)

The moment Sans’ head hits the pillow, he realizes he won’t be able to sleep. Great. An insomniac night. You can see it in his eyelights when he stares at the ceiling. 

“No sleep, huh?” you ask.  
“nope,” he says.  
“Fun…” is all you can think to say.

You really want to fall asleep, but you know the best course of action is to try to stay awake with the poor guy. This is typically when he has his anxiety attacks, when he starts shaking and panicking and, sometimes, crying. You sit up on an elbow so you can see him properly, and he looks your way, fully aware of your plan.

“you can’t stay up all night, and you know it.”  
“Probably not, but I can try,” you shrug.  
“you’ll be so tired, just get some sleep. i’ll be ok,” he says.  
“I’m always tired. I can take a nap. For now, I’m staying up.”

It’s not like he can stop you. Not that he wants to, deep down. Eventually, his own tiredness will give out, but for now; he’s wide awake. You know this will get really boring really fast if you don’t think of something to do. You have roughly nine hours before morning, and that’s a lot of time to kill. 

“So, what do you want to do? Um, we could talk…or…build a fort? Listen to music…um, any ideas?” you purposefully avoid dream-sharing, but he suggests it anyway.  
“we could dream-share, if you want.”

You sigh- you’d honestly rather not relive your worst nightmares for the first five minutes of the night. The idea both terrifies and tires you. You’re tired enough, honestly. But though that’s how you write off not wanting to do it, the idea of seeing some Chara-possessed friend, or reliving Ali’s death, or seeing your dad again is more than you can take; the terror threatens tears. Swallowing firmly, you manage a consise “no thanks” before your mouth locks up again. He notices, but he doesn’t say anything. Other quiet things to do…

“so, that crack in your soul, do you want me to check on it? see how it’s holdin’ up?” The offer is really sweet, even though it essentially means he’ll be Judging you again. And really, anything sounds better than dream-sharing at the moment, so you nod.

There’s second of him staring at you blankly, which borderline freaks you out. You don’t show it, obviously. When you see him refocus, he gives you a weird look- what happened?

“What? Did I do something? Is it bad?” you ask, worried that something’s wrong. 

He shakes his head, grin spreading across his face, and practically facepalms. He sighs, half laughing, and says,

“’s completely healed over. you’re fine, if not stronger for it. how it healed is what’s gettin’ me.”  
“How?”  
“Green and White… you really are an angel, huh?” he asks, practically ignoring you.   
“What?! You’re being mysterious!” you say, playfully annoyed. “Tell me!”  
“your soul. it healed over with Green and White magic. thing is, NOBODY heals over Green and White. that’s Kindness and Compassion, sweetheart. it means you don’t want revenge, you don’t want anything from anyone. you just want to help the people who hurt. that’s… awesome.”

You can’t help but blush a little at the praise. But you kind of wish it isn’t this way, honestly. All you can see is how weak it feels that you just forgave everything and moved on. He must see the disappointment on your face, because he says,

“that’s not a bad thing, ya know.”  
“Yes, it is. I just moved on, shouldn’t I want revenge on Chara or something?”  
“YOU do, but not at your core. heh…Core. anyway, i would do anything- hell, i’d pay off my tab at Grillby’s- if it meant i could heal my soul White. why d’ya think it’s Blue? that isn’t normal.”

You hadn’t thought about it before. Does that mean…

“Your soul cracked so much…and healed so much… that it’s ALL Blue now…?”  
“i mean, yeah…hey, that’s not where i was going with this.”  
“Don’t care. Gimme a hug.”

He seems embarrassed, but you pull him into a hug, hating that you’d never known this before.   
After Ali died, he’d seemed a lot more open to getting close to you. Every time, he acts like he’s holding you for the last time. Well, he wouldn’t see you complaining. He hugs you really tight and buries his face in your hair. You smile softly, but don’t pull away until he releases. You don’t want to be the first to move, to be honest.

“What do you want to do…?” you murmur quietly, playing with the zipper on his hoodie.  
“i’m fine doin’ what we’re doin’,” he shrugs, smiling.  
“What do you want to TALK about, bonehead?”   
“i don’t care,” he’s grinning now, and it makes you huff.  
“Fine. Then I’m gonna ask something dumb.”  
“shoot. you couldn’t be dumb if you tried.”

You let the compliment slide off and ask-

“Can you, um, take your arms off and stuff like you did when I was little? Or did that change? You stopped after a while.”  
“oh, yeah. easy.”

He squirms out of his hoodie and pulls one of his arms off with a little pop noise. You’re kind of weirded out by it, and tell him so- so he just pops it back on. You grab his hoodie before he has a chance to put it back on and hug it tightly to your chest. He doesn’t protest, but he smirks. 

“d’you just steal that to steal it, or are you really cold?”  
“Both.”  
“pfft. you’re hilarious.”

You laugh and tug it on. It hasn’t even been an hour, and there’s a long way to go. Your eyelids are drooping, you can feel it, but you have to stay awake. God knows what would happen if you left him here alone. 

“hey, you sure you don’t wanna try and get some sleep?”  
“I do, but I’m not just letting you stay here by yourself,” but you can barely mask the yawn behind your hand.  
“really, i’ll be fine. how’s this? i’ll wake ya up if i start feelin’ bad, ok? that way you can sleep.”

The offer is tempting, especially when you’re so close to just blacking out anyway. Is it a good idea, though? ‘Who cares,’ shouts your brain, ‘just sleep already.’

“You WILL wake me up if you’re scared, though, right?” you ask, already settling in.  
“yup.”  
“Promise?”  
“. . .promise.”

At the very word, your eyes shut and your breathing evens out into the deep, slow pulls of sleep. He chuckles to himself. 

‘geez, she really was tired,’ he thinks, ‘now, how’m i gonna get through the rest of the night? thinking’s no good, i’ll just end up flippin’ out. maybe… read some of the science journals in Paps’ old room…ok. least it’s somethin’ to do.”

He stands, making sure not to wake you, and steps down the hall. The whole room has a thin layer of dust on it, which would be a lot scarier if it weren’t just dirt and lint. Sans snags one of the better ones about spacetime and quantum physics- it’s legible, which is a shock seeing as most books to fall down are ruined in the water at Waterfall. It was a Gyftmas gift- his first- from Papyrus. Just the sight of it is nostalgic, and he makes sure to get out of his brother’s room before he starts digging up memories.   
Once Sans is back in the room, he hops back up onto the bed and reads. No need for a flashlight, since the book is so close, and his eyelights glow anyway. While you snore softly, the hours tick by. Quantum physics, black holes, void theories, a few chapters even toy with the idea that time can bend…when he leans in closer at a smudged paragraph he hadn’t noticed before. 

“Though we could hypothetically manipulate time, if we had the right materials and technology for it,” it reads, “there are spurious claims that this would bring horrible misfortune on the one to do so. Meaning: even if we learned to manipulate time, there are large groups of people who believe in a “magic” or a “force” in the universe capable and sentient enough to backlash. These groups would protest; forcefully, this author believes. For these reasons, no one in the scientific industry has ventured to test the theories listed in these chapters. We have decided to collect the beliefs of this group under one category-” Sans hands shake slightly as he reads the words, “The Whiplash Theory.”

Anyone who manipulates time will have “horrible misfortune”…nope. It can’t be right, if it was all horrible misfortune, you wouldn’t have anyone by your side to help you, right? Or…is he, and the rest of your friends, the reason you’re suffering the most? Because they can be used as a tool against you? He shuts the book firmly and drops it on his lap, then leans back to think on this. “Whiplash Theory”…he can’t get the words out of his mind. What sounds wrong about them? Is it the literal side of it, that manipulating time recklessly would bring back retaliation like a whiplash? Or something else? The idea of a whip used against you makes him cringe, and he stops to take a few breaths. Only about four hours to go before sunrise. No breakdowns.   
Even though it’s unsettling, it reassures Sans that there’s actually science in the works behind all the crap happening to you. He’d never liked the spontaneous- not that he liked planning, per se, but he at least liked knowing what was happening. When you’d tried throwing him a surprise party when you were thirteen, it’d nearly scared him out of his soul. Not that it wasn’t fun- it was- but when you expect to come home to a quiet couch and some sleep, a party popper in your eyesockets isn’t the best wake-up call. Still, though. “Whiplash”. 

The very thought sends chills down his spine.

Picking the book up with shaky hands, he flips past it and reads about the expanding universe and Big Bang theories. It’s calming at first, but the more he reads the little quotes and footnotes he usually ignored, the more unsettling it is. Theories of timelines and deep voids that might be able to sustain life. Possibilities of the dead reviving- if the theories were correct. But always the refrain. “Whiplash Theories.” Whiplash, whiplash, whiplash. “None of it true”. All “highly experimental” and “untested by science”.   
Old memories of Gaster falling, falling into that darkness. You falling down through the trees, BB bullets stuck in your side and arms. Pap’s head falling in the snow, body crumbling to dust.   
His breathing comes quick and lopsided, eyelights tiny in his sockets, shaking like a leaf. The fatigue doesn’t help, even though he can’t sleep even if he wanted to. All the anxiety and pain and fear comes crushing in and he shakes your arm- after all, a promise is a promise. 

Your eyes blink open fast enough to see him descend into full blown panic, clutching his skull in shaking hands, bones rattling as they tremble. You sit up hurriedly and hold him gently- it’s all you can think to do. He chokes on blue tears and you wipe them away with a hoodie sleeve, not unlike you did the first night you ever told him you loved him. He looks at you, meets your eyes, and locks on them like they’re the last thing he’ll ever get to see. He looks so…broken. You can’t help but tear up a little yourself, seeing him like this for the first time in ages.

“i’m sorry, i’m sorry, i’m sorry, i’m-” he chokes, and you grip his hands in yours, not breaking eye contact.  
“Deep breaths. C’mon. Go through it all slowly, focus. Your name is Sans. You live in Snowdin with your brother Papyrus, and with me, (Y/n). We’re okay. Nothing is reset. We’re free from the Underground. You, um, you love puns! And Papyrus. And me. We’re safe.”

As you go through, you feel him getting less and less tense. He seems to back out of it, realize that everyone is alright. You try to think of more things.

“You like socks because they’re warm and cushiony to walk on. Your favorite comedian is Bo Burnham because of all the dirty jokes he makes. You like Mushu from Mulan. You’re really warm. This is your favorite hoodie, I stole it a few hours ago- sorry. You can rap like there’s no tomorrow. God, you can dance. But mostly you sit on the couch and chill out…um…”  
“’s ok. i’m good. thanks, sweetheart,” he says, unfolding slowly from his panicky position into something more open. You hug him tightly, trying to reassure him that you’re here. He seems to take the hint. 

After a little while longer of holding there, he finally falls asleep. And so do you.

Fin


	15. Dark Matter and Giggles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I rambled and rambled and I still couldn't make it long enough.   
Pure, rambly fluff. Good stuff in the works, though, promise.
> 
> You notice Sans hasn't been getting much sleep lately- and hijinks ensue.

“Weird question: do animals scare you?” you ask, entirely randomly.  
“what? like dogs?” Sans says, glancing up from his book- he’s had it a few days now. Whenever you try to read over his shoulder, he flips to a different page or snaps it shut. And where he puts it when he isn’t reading it is a mystery to you. 

He’s had it since that night he couldn’t sleep- and, ironically, he hasn’t been getting much sleep because of it. His bones have started to get discolored, and he has dark circles under his eyesockets. But you didn’t want to be nosy, so you decided to leave it be.   
At the moment he’s sitting at the table while you make lunch. Sandwiches and chips- you’ve discovered he has an affinity for Lays’. Dipped in ketchup, of course. Normally, you’d tell him to get off his lazy butt and help, but with how tired he’s been lately, his just sitting is better than nothing.

“Well, I was thinking more like snakes and stuff, wild animals. Snakes give me the heebie-jeebies- ophidophobia, I think it’s called.” you reply.  
“nah, i think snakes are cool. interesting, honestly. besides, they can’t exactly bite me.”

That makes you chuckle, and he grins.

“why do snakes scare ya? they’re basically scaly worms with teeth.” he adds.  
“Venomous teeth. Some even spit it. And some of them can, like, eat you whole. Or wrap around you and squeeze you to death…” you shudder and push the image out of your mind, and he snorts.  
“and…most of them are defenseless tiny worms.” 

You shudder again and try to move on. 

“I just don’t like ‘em, okay? Anyway, your turn to ask a random question.”

That gets him to set the book down. Nice! He thinks for a minute, skull sitting in one hand, before asking,

“ok, how’s this: you remember when you were little; and you, like, flirted your way out of battles? what was up with that?”  
“Oh my god, YES! I’d nearly forgot! I- I don’t even know, dude!” you laugh out loud, but it isn’t your normal laugh. It’s short, loud and kind of mixed with a snort. Blushing furiously at whatever it was, you turn away under the disguise of finishing the already-completed sandwiches.   
There’s a second or two of silence before Sans snorts and breaks out in laughter behind you, unable to hold it in. You look over your shoulder as he falls backwards on the floor, laughing harder than he has in ages. You sigh, grinning.  
You walk over to him and sit beside him on the floor- he’s laughing so hard he has little glowing tears in his eyesockets. 

“My weird laugh THIS funny, huh?” you ask.  
“oh god, what WAS that?!” he asks, redoubling in laughter.  
“Dunno, but it sure got you excited.”

You give him a minute to finish laughing- when he’s done, he sits up enough for you to look at him up close. It’s worse than you thought- the black marks under his sockets are really deep, his eyelights are so dim you can barely see them. You scoop him up bridal-style and kiss him on the skull, then set him carefully on the couch. He seems confused, and you sigh.

“You look horrible, Sans. No offense. I’m taking care of you for the rest of the day. First orders: you’ll eat, and then you’ll sleep. I can take care of the rest.”  
“hey, no, i’m fine!” he tries to sit up, but you put a hand on his shoulder and gently push him back down. He’s trying to resist, but he’s so tired he can barely fight it. 

You tell him to scoot over, then lay down next to him, cupping his skull in one hand. 

“Please take a nap? For me. I wanna make sure you’re okay just as much as you want me to be okay. And at the moment you are very NOT okay,” you rest your forehead against his, knowing he can hardly say no to it. “Please?”

He sighs and leans back into the couch.

“ok, sweetheart. i prob’ly need it, anyway. save me my sandwich, ‘k?”  
“Sure. Night, bonehead.” You peck him on the skull and get up to eat lunch. 

After a few hours, he’s definitely improved- you see it happen gradually. His bones whiten a few shades and the normal magical aura around him thrums happily again. An easy grin slips across his face as he snores.   
You wait until you’re completely positive he’ll stay asleep before you crack open his book. You can barely wrap your head around the concepts it entails- deep voids and endless galaxies and infinite perimeters. Everything seems is so big in space! The highlighted portions catch your eyes- all about something called the Whiplash Theory- there’s magic in the universe. Well, duh. Though the author deemed it worth mentioning, they apparently think all of these theories are impractical. Some of them even sound like they describe you- people coming back from the dead and harnessing space time. Apparently the idea behind the “whiplash” name comes from the misfortune that messing with time can bring you. It would make sense, but it makes you feel kind of condemned, anyway. Like by resetting that first time years ago, you’re screwed now. Even after your sandwich is long gone, you’re still reading about it, starting to understand. 

Across the room, Sans’ bones pop and he stretches, waking up slowly. When you aren’t on the couch next to him, he sits up and turns around. The book is propped up on the table in front of you, and your chin is in your hands, curiosity in your eyes. When you see him sit up, you beckon him over distractedly.

“Hey, what is this stuff? It’s really interesting!”  
“uh…’s a science journal. some anonymous author. Paps gave it to me for our first Gyftmas. um…doesn’t it, er, bother you?” he asks, searching your face for any worry.   
You’re honestly too curious to bother with those emotions right now, and you just smile sarcastically.  
“What, the chapter about how I’m screwed since I messed with time, or the dead-people-can-live-in-voids theory? It mostly just feels good that there’s some science behind this.”

He crosses his arms, looking at the book, and nods.

“i felt that way, too. good to know there’s some reason behind it. but it still sucks.”  
“Duh. Have you ever read anything on the NASA website? It’s kinda like this, but without the magic parts. Or there’s this lab in Canada that’s literally underground- um, SNOLABS, I think it’s called? (Look it up.) They study dark matter and voids and stuff, too.”  
“NASA, yeah, sure, love that stuff. but i’ve never heard of that one. y’know, Alphys once lent me an old human book; it had a quote i really liked about dark matter. it was some romance novel, but it had a bunch of deep stuff and nerdy stuff, so i read it. not bad, actually- i think it might still be under my mattress- hold up.”

He pops upstairs; when he comes back down, he’s holding a book open to one page. He hands it over to you. You read the underlined portion out loud-  
“‘Dark matter is 27% of the universe…it’s what keeps us bound together…dark matter is love. It’s the attracting force.’ (The Sun Is Also A Star, Nicola Yoon.) Wow. That’s…so sweet. That’s so awesome! Why haven’t you shown me this sooner?!”

You tilt the book so you can see it better, wonder sparkling in your eyes. Quotes could always do that to you, even when you were younger- you flip to the first page. He chuckles and guides you back to the couch so you aren’t reading the whole thing in the hard wooden chair. As you settle in, he drops down by you and asks what sentence you’re on. You show him, and soon the book is held between you, both sets of eyes (and eyelights) pinging from one side of the page to the other. You’re just a little faster than him at reading, so you slow down so he can catch up.  
By the time dinner comes along, you’re nearly done with it. It’s a long book, but it’s interesting. Your eyes fill up with tears at the ending…this can’t be how it ends, the girl flying away to Jamaica because of that stupid social worker! And the poet trapped in America, made to be a lawyer by his stupid parents. It’s so painfully realistic you have to set it down for a minute and take a breath. Sans sighs, half-knowing this is how you’d react when you got to this part.

“wait ’til it’s over, sweetheart. it’s a little better.”  
You sniff- “But this is the last page!”  
“nope. there’s still the epilogue. here,” he hands it over to you and you lean forward, reading earnestly. When it’s over, you smile and shut it. (No, I ain’t spoiling the ending, read a real book instead of fanfics, ya doof)  
“Okay. Got scared there for a second.”   
“yup. i know.”

You need to do something, need to get up, but you also don’t want to leave the warmth and comfort of the couch. Trapped by indecision, You set the book down and stretch your legs, but lean backwards. Sans points at a spot on the floor and shouts-

“snake!”

You jump, then scurry up higher on the couch to get away from it. Already the thought of an actual snake makes you breathe faster and shallower than usual. When Sans sees your reaction, he puts his hands up, palms out-

“woah, calm down. kidding! i was kidding. geez, you really are scared of snakes, aren’tcha?”

He holds his arms out to help you down from where you’re perched like a bird on the back of the couch. You relax, still breathing lopsidedly, and look at the ground where the snake had supposedly been, triple-checking it isn’t real. When it isn’t, you slug him in the arm and huff. He chuckles at your weak retaliation, then helps you back down to your spot. 

“i’m sorry, ‘k? i didn’t know it was that bad. let’s make sure you don’t ACTUALLY come in contact with any danger worms, huh?”  
“Pfft. Danger worms. I call them harbingers of poisonous death.”  
“noodle-shaped harbingers of poisonous death. i like the sound of it,” he nods seriously.

That gets you to laugh. He grins- you can see genuine happiness in his eyelights. Even if one isn’t green, it’s there, and it makes you smile.

“You’ve gotten so much better, you know.”  
“at what?”  
“Just…you’re so much happier. A year ago none of this would never have been here, but now it is. And before you win me over by saying something about how it was all because of me, I have to first say it can’t ALL be because of me. You worked really hard. And I’m really proud of you.”  
“…thanks. i think you’re right. i…thank you.”

You give him a hug, and then kiss him on the side of his skull deliberately. He softens- 

“you’re the greatest, sweetheart.”  
“Duh. But you’re greatest-er.”  
“hey, wait, idea. watch this-”

He walks his fingers up your back, making you shiver, then asks-

“do you feel your Sans crawling on your back?”

It takes you a minute, but then you laugh out loud again, that weird one form earlier, and he laughs, too- soon you’re a pile of weird giggles and snorts.   
I can’t lie- you’re super frickin’ weird. But you’re his type of weird. And, vice versa. 

“That was good! Oh JEEZ!” you collapse into laughter again.  
“i know, huh? heheh. c’mon, i’ll help out with food since is skipped earlier,” he stands and pops his back, then helps pull you to your feet.  
“Sweet! I’m starving,” you accept the offer readily, then pull out your phone. “We can listen to music, too. Ever tried Owl City?”  
“the “firefly” guy?”  
“Yeah, him. He has some really good stuff besides that, though. How’s this?”

You set it on a good song and drop it on the table, then head in to the kitchen. Before you even start making food, it becomes evident you aren’t going to be doing as much cooking as singing. The songs get sadder and more intense as the playlist runs, and you have a spoon in one hand, belting out the lyrics in a voice stretched so thin it should break. But, it doesn’t. Sans works around you, listening and making hotcats at the same time- it’s the only thing he knows how to make, if you don’t count hotdogs- but turns to you when he sees your tears well up.  
“hey, you good?”  
“He’s just so…REAL, you know? Like the book. I’m not sad or anything, it’s just really good. Sorry, I should help,” you make a move to put down the spoon, but he waves a hand.  
“nah, do your thing. you made lunch, anyway. you in the mood for a hotcat?”  
“How can one NOT be in the mood for an excellently prepared hotcat? ooh, wait, this is a good one,” you twirl in the center of the room as the chorus hits, “cause IIIIIII foundddd loooove.”

He just chuckles.

“i know i sure did.”

Fin


	16. Plot *tsiwt*!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For once, Sans is sick. Fever, ironically enough. But skele-fam to the rescue...and...
> 
> ...Chara? *dramatic plot twist music*.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thinking about writing a lil' mini romance chapter as follow up to this bc I love writing it so much, but then I'm taking (yet another) break from this work to write!!! Alphdyne!!! Because the fact that I have so many ideas is keeping me up at night and I need the sleep!!
> 
> Since I forgot to say happy fourth birthday to Undertale, here it is:  
Happy Fourth Birthday, Undertale!!  
Thanks, Toby!! You changed my life in a lot of big ways, and connected me to a lot of awesome people!!
> 
> As he himself said: "You will hear the acoustic guitar, and you will learn empathy."
> 
> *I beg that someone listen to 'Memory' from the Undertale soundtrack at some point whilst reading this.  
The song from the kindness you showed an old statue...one umbrella is all it takes.*

You blink awake- it must still be late, there isn’t even light outside the windows. You stare at the ceiling blankly, thinking of slow things. That typically helped you fall asleep. Turtles. Deep, even breaths. Dripping water… your eyes dim with tiredness again. Sans leans into you, still asleep. His hand stretches out gently, sleepily, and rests on your arm. You jumps when he touches you- his bones are so hot. Dry, too- you touch a hand to his face- it’s burning up.

“mmm…what’s up?” he asks, waking up.  
“I’m getting you some water. You’re burning up.”  
“oh, geez, you’re right- no wonder i feel like crap. thanks.”  
“No problem. You probably need to change out of that into something clean, that’s what we did last time, I think.”  
“ok.”

Even though he changes and drinks a lot of water over the next few days, he doesn’t get much better. If anything, he gets worse- his appetite dies, his temperature climbs, and he gets so shaky he has to stay in bed most of the time. Alphys has come in several times, and even put together some pills to bring his temperature down, but they can’t fix everything. Though, you can’t even stay in the same bed with him anymore because he gets so hot at night.  
Papyrus visits him sometimes, but mostly he lets Impact cheer Sans up- he sits against the wall, propped up with pillows, and lets the babybones crawl all over, babbling long stories and dancing. It’s the highlight of his day, honestly.  
Most of the time, though? He’s bored out of his mind. He can’t stand without help, reading makes his head throb, and even basic things like puzzles or movies make him fall asleep. Impact is the exception- it’s like the unfailing energy in his soul seeps into his, making every little thing he does interesting. 

It’s roughly been a week since it started, now. Tonight, he’s tossing and turning, unable to decide whether he’s burning or freezing. You even hear him across the hall from Papyrus’ room, where you’ve been sleeping, and come in to check on him. 

Unfortunately, you enter the room to discover he isn’t alone. Chara is sitting at the end of the bed, staring at him blankly. Her creepy smile is gone. When you come in, she glances up, looking almost bored.

“Hey, idiot.”

You jump about a mile and let out a little noise of fear, but she just ignores you.

“I’m not doing anything,” she adds.

You glare, step forward carefully, and pull Sans’ deeply sleeping body behind you in the bed.

“Yeah. Sure. What do you want?”  
“Nothing. Everything. It isn’t really important what I want. He’s dying, you know.”  
“H-how do you know?”  
“Well, you know from experience that you don’t just ‘brush off’ 104 degree fevers. He should have been in the hospital days ago…and he won’t make it in time now.”  
“. . . .You’re lying.”  
“Pfft, no, I’m not. Check his HP yourself, it’s falling by the second.”  
“Why should I? You’ll just…I dunno, kill me while my guard’s down.”  
“How? I can’t touch anything physically, he’s useless to possess in this state, and you’re extremely taxing to possess. And I don’t really have the enthusiasm to take that on right now.”

You hesitate a moment, guard still high up, and turn quickly to check him. 

HP: 1/3  
AT: 1  
DF: 1, it reads.

You come back quickly in case Chara has any ideas, but she’s just sitting there staring at the floor. Your eyes are wide with fear. He can’t die, he can’t. You ask, voice ragged,

“What do you want? You’re here for a reason. And I’m pretty positive that reason’s to rub this in my face. So why don’t you?”

You cradles his face in a hand, eyes locked on Chara, and wait. She meets your gaze steadily and shrugs.

“I don’t feel many things anymore, remember? No soul? So I “feel” things by watching other people feel things. Thought I’d come and see if I could feel bad for him. So far, I don’t. But I’m not feeling any happiness or anything either, so I guess that’s less “evil” than usual,” she adds.  
“So…you aren’t getting a kick out of watching him die…? Oh, god, what do I do?”

It’s really hit you now- he’s dying. He'll die, and you’ll have to reset…you’ll have to go back to being eight again! And it’s painful for him, too. Forgetting about Chara for a second, you trie to shake him awake, gently. He’s bleary-eyed and miserable, and his fever is nowhere close to breaking. 

“mhh…what’s happening? man, i don’t feel good…” he shivers, wrapping the sheets around him. You pull his hoodie tighter around him and hold him closer.

“It’s okay. I’ll figure something out, okay? Hang in there.”  
“so tired…” is all he manages before he blacks out again. 

Chara speaks up, quietly-

“Hey. I can try something.”

Your eyes glare threateningly, but you know you're running out of options- healing only works on physical wounds- and it’s warm magic, anyway, even if Papyrus did it. It would just make him worse. Alphys wouldn’t be able to help either, she said. Oh! The pills she made, the ones to reduce his temperature, those could buy some time!  
You grab the little bottle from under the bed, along with one of the half-empty bottles of water. With a little coaxing, you manage to make him sit up and take them. Immediately it knocks a few degrees off his fever, but it can’t last. After a minute, you turn back to Chara.

“What- what did you have in mind?”  
“Well, a little deal with the devil, essentially. You tell me what I want to know, and I can possess him-” she starts, but you cut her off.  
“No chance. Hang in there, Sans, I’m calling Paps,” you murmur to him when he shifts uncomfortably. 

You quickly dial the number and wait.

“Ah…*yawn* what’s happened? Are you alright, (y/n)? Is it Sans, how is he?”  
“Paps, his fever is really high. He’s already knocked off two HP, I don’t know what to do- I’m so sorry, I hate having to keep calling you in the middle of the night…”  
“I’m on my way. This is why we moved so close- to help. We’re family, it will be alright,” he says it as if family is enough to keep Sans from dying. Suddenly, an idea hits you.  
“Can you bring Impact? I know, it’s crazy late, I’m sorry, but whenever he’s around he always seems so much more energetic.”  
“. . .it’s worth a try. Okay. See you in a moment.”  
“Oh, and Papyrus?”  
“Yes?”  
“Don’t freak out when you see who’s with us.” 

A second or two later, Papyrus opens the front door, holding Impact. He steps up the stairs quickly, and takes a look at the peculiar scene. Chara is sitting on the floor, picking at a loose thread on her shirt and staring at you. You’re shaking now, trying to hold it together, and you have Sans pulled to his chest. You’re terrified- his HP had dropped to .5. The taller skeleton nearly jumps out of his soul when he sees Chara- but he’s the most scared when he sees his brother. You look at him and relinquish Sans, just a little.

“What do we do?” You ask, voice wavering slightly.  
“What is she here for?” Papyrus answers with his own question, nodding his head at Chara. Impact babbles quietly about the “scary girl”, too.  
“She said she wanted to feel something, then she “offered” to try to possess him because somehow THAT would help. I- I don’t know. But she’s not helping, and she’s not hurting, and she won’t go away, so I guess it’s okay.”  
“I see…alright. I don’t know what to do, either…if we make him warmer, will the fever break? That might help,” it’s a stab in the dark, but he’s panicking now.  
“You think so?” you ask, tentatively. Chara rolls her red eyes in the corner.

“You two really are idiots. You live in the coldest place down here, for dad’s sake. Just put him in the snow. Breaking his fever would only work if he was about to die. And he isn’t close enough, anyway.”

You exchange glances. It’s hard to admit, but it isn’t a bad idea. 

“Ah…thank you? I will go get some snow. (Y/n), Impact, you stay here with him. I doubt keeping him in the snow will help him as much as freeze him solid, so we can do it little by little. Do not worry, brother. Hold on.”

Papyrus turns quickly and vanishes down the stairs. You pulls Sans ever closer, begging him quietly to just stay awake for a little while longer. His eyes flicker open again, light drained from his eyelights. He takes deep breaths, but his bones are burning everywhere, you barely know how you can stand to touch him. He doesn’t notice Chara in the corner. 

“sweetheart?” he asks, barely audible.  
“Yeah, I’m here, what is it?” you’re trying so hard not to break down.  
“i’m not gonna die. i won’t…”

He tries to sit up, but you put a gentle hand on his shoulder and hold him back. At least he still has some fight in him.

“I know, bonehead, of course you won’t. You’re okay. We’re gonna cool you off, and you’ll be fine. Save your energy. Just hold in there.”  
“ok…ok. hey. ‘f i die, don’t reset, ‘k?” he says, hoarsely. You press your forehead against his burning one.  
“Don’t say that. You aren’t dying, not on my watch. I need you here. Papyrus needs you here. Even Impact. Just stay, hang on.”  
“i’m tryin’.”  
“And you’re doing a great job. If you don’t have determination, use mine, Sans. I know it hurts to try, I know it hurts, but we have to pull through, alright? Just a little farther. Hey, look who came to see you!” you say softly, then beckon Impact to crawl closer. He does, then places his little hands on Sans’ face.

“Punnel Sans? You’re like fire,” he says, eyesockets glowing a faint purple and orange in worry.  
“heh. callin’ me fire, eh? thanks, kid,” his eyesights are dim, so dim, but they crinkle up in a smile.  
“Don’t go away,” he insists, making Sans sigh.  
“yeah, i know. just tired. prob’ly just me bein’ lazy.”  
“Then don’ be lazy. Easy-peasy,” Impact says, with the air of someone who’s just solved a great mystery. Sans chuckles weakly.  
“there we go, huh? easy-peasy.”

Impact leans forward and hugs Sans around the neck, then sits up and crawls backwards into you. You smile- he’s so good at…whatever he does. Luckily, just then, Papyrus comes in holding a scarf full of snow. 

“Okay, where do we put this?” he asks quietly. Sans sits up on an elbow to look at his brother, which seems to catch him off guard.  
“heya, bro,” he smiles, weak as ever.  
“S-sans,” he sets the bundle of snow on the floor and hugs his brother as best he can laying down. “You’re going to be alright, brother, I promise. Where does it feel the worst?”

After he takes his hoodie off, you help apply generous handfuls of snow to his back- he shakes, freezing, but when you touch his forehead, his temperature has definitely dropped. When he finally asks that it get taken off, you can’t stand the pain in his eyelights, so you ease most of it off again. Shaking, shallow breaths wheezing out of his sternum, he suddenly grabs Papyrus’s hand.

“talk.”  
“What?” he asks, surprised.  
“talk, ‘bout anything, please, talk,” he winces, you feel his soul breaking-  
“O-okay…okay. Ah…” his eyesockets are panicked, and he’s blanking. Impact waves his arms and says,

“Space! Space!”  
“Yes! Yes, Impact, space. You always loved everything about the sky on the surface. And all the things in it. The moon, the stars, those things you called, er, black holes? You tried to watch a documentary about it with me, but I got quite bored of it. I’m sorry- er. Um. There were those big things, galaxies, the ones you said had a bunch of stars and planets and things. And you told me all that…and I got you all those books about them. You loved those. And the telescope, and you used it to trick (y/n)! She had that ink ring around her eye for a week. Oh…” he drops the ball again, so you pick it up for him.  
“And the mystery of dark matter, you read that book with me about it. The quote- ‘dark matter is love. It’s the attracting force.’ That one. You told me it was your favorite quote. And I showed you some old SNOLABS videos of those scientists in Canada, the ones studying dark matter?”

When you can’t think of anything else, you hear the little noise that means his HP has dropped again. Chara remarks from behind you, making you jump- you’d forgotten she was here. 

“He’s at point one. Better hurry, you’re running out of ideas.”

Sans’ eyesockets widen. He looks scared, scared to die. You want to squeeze his hand, but you get the feeling it would crumble in yours. Impact turns around to Chara and asks loudly-

“You help. What can you do?” You want to panic, and when Sans looks up to see who Impact is talking to, he blanches even further than usual, trying desperately to sit up.

“get…back…buddo. she’s not *hhh* friendly.”  
“Then she shoulda hurt us earlier,” he says confidently, turning back to her. “What can you do?” he repeats.

She shrugs, looking smug. 

“I tried to tell girly over there earlier if she told me something i’ve been meaning to know for a while I could possess him long enough to bring his core temperature down. After all, he’s too weak to attack anyone in this state, even himself. Even if I took over. And since I’m healthy- well, besides being dead- the average of HP would balance out and hold him together long enough to heal him. Warm magic would break his fever, since he’s about to die, now. Anyway, just a thought. I need information. He needs to not die. We could have a bargain.”

Impact huffs.

“Do it, then.”

You shout in protest, and so do the skelebros, but she just waltzes over and vanishes. Sans’ body is shaken violently as he tries to fight her off, but in his state he loses easily. He blinks open his eyes, looking almost annoyed. His eyelights are red. HIS voice comes out of HIS mouth, but they aren’t his words.

“ugh, so weird maneuvering this type of body. no tongue, no skin. well, hurry up and do it, i want out asap,” he-she?- beckons at Papyrus. He hesitantly begins to heal his brother, or Chara, or whoever it really is, and soon their eyelights fade back to white, and Chara sits in the corner. Sans is still weak as ever, but his temperature has fallen, and he can breathe better now. You tentatively crawl closer to him and feel his bones. They’re shaking with fatigue, but they’re peacefully, blissfully warm. Not that blazing heat, but something relieving. 

A few tears spring up at the back of your eyes, and you release a breath you didn’t know you were holding. You speak quietly-

“Better?”

He sets eyes on you and sighs, still shaking. 

“yeah. water?”

You sigh in relief and hug him close to you. He can barely move to reassure you, so he just lets you coax a few gulps of water into him. Then, he falls asleep. Chara asks, not skipping a beat-

“So. Question time.”

Resigned, you turn to her.  
“Shoot.”  
“When do you feel the most things?”

It’s such an innocent question, but Papyrus puts a hand on your arm-

“Be careful what you say, (y/n).”  
“I- um. I think I feel I feel the most things when… I don’t know. When I’m happy, I think.”

She looks down, avoiding your eyes- she looks caught off guard. Soon, though, she regains her normal attitude. She laughs-

“Liar. Well, it’s alright. Bye-bye!” she smiles creepily and vanishes. You shudder a little, then thank Papyrus. He smiles broadly-

“I am happy you call me when you need help! He… he doesn’t always do that. It makes it hard for me to know when he’s hurt. I’m glad you fell down in the first place- you changed everything for us. Thank you. Impact, say thank you,” he adds in a sing-song voice, hoisting Impact up on his lap. You laugh quietly, so you don’t wake Sans.  
“Him, thank me? No way- he helped Sans more than I ever could. He even prompted us when we ran out of ideas. I’ll make you some ice cream or something tomorrow, ‘kay, kiddo? Now you need to go to sleep and keep that helpful head of yours rested, huh, Papyrus?”  
“Yes! A whole bowl of ice cream, all to yourself, right, Impact? Oh, sleepybones,” he laughs a little when Impact crawls into your arms and falls asleep. It almost makes you fall asleep, too- his warmth generates in a neat little cocoon, and his little black wave of hair smells like lavender. You sigh, adrenaline crash nearly knocking you out- Papyrus gently picks him up out of your arms.

“Go to sleep, all right? Call me if anything happens- I’ll bring over breakfast in the morning. Good night.”  
“Paps, *yawn* you don’t have to-” you start, already drooping into the sheets.  
“I want to, (y/n). I really want to. Now go to bed.”

You nod and thank him, then lay down next to Sans. You stroke his skull gently, every touch reminding you, solidly, easily- he’s alright. He’s alive. Even as your eyes start to shut, you put the tiniest kiss on his forehead. You think he might have opened his eyes at that- you don’t know for sure, though, because you fell asleep.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
The next morning, you feel blissfully cooler than earlier last night. A hand on Sans’ forehead confirms your theory- he’s back to normal, for the most part. He reaches up a tired hand to hold yours when he feels it, eyes blinking open. A smirk crosses his face, and you smile back.

“How do you feel?” you ask, quietly, as the first of the sunlight filters through his window.  
“sans-tastic,” he says, grinning.  
“There’s my bonehead.”

He presses a skele-kiss to the back of your hand, making you smile wider. He looks really, truly better.

“yeah, i don’t remember a lot from last night. but i know you were there all the way through it, huh? thanks.”  
“No problem- Papyrus is bringing breakfast in a minute. He was there all the time, too.”  
“i know. god, i feel good.”  
“Well, good job, pulling through like you did. C’mere, I need a hug-”

He hugs you, and you inhale deeply, breathing in the smell of bone and magic and fabric softener. You press him closer, hug him as tight as you can. He seems surprised, but doesn’t resist. In fact, neither of you do, not for a long time. Not ever wanting to let go. He whispers softly-

“i missed hugs.”  
“It was only a week.”  
“ok. i missed hugs for a week.”  
“Pfft. Bonehead,” you relax and let the sunshine fall on your face- it feels like the first time in weeks the sky isn’t cloudy with snow- you glance out the window and gasp delightedly. 

“Sans, look! It’s snowing and shiny out together! Ooh, these were always the best days, you remember?”  
“yup. oh, that’ll be Paps-” downstairs the door opens and you hear Impact shout- “WAFFLES!” then hear Mettaton’s robotic tones asking him to quiet down. After all they don’t know you’re awake yet. All this light makes you feel like nothing bad could ever happen again- you grin and poke Sans in the rib.

“Whaddya say no movies tonight? Just you and me?” your eyes glint mischievously, and he has to laugh.  
“i’m in.” he says, happily. “i’m in.”

Fin


	17. Flurfles!! <3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The promised mini-romance chapter!!

“so,” he asks, “do you have a plan?”  
“Nope. Winging it,” you shrug, scrubbing a plate.  
“my favorite kind of plan,” he laughs.

It’s late- you hope tonight will be drastically different than last night- today sure was. Instead of sitting all propped up with pillows, weak with fever, Sans got up and ate a whole plate of waffles all by himself. You were really happy when you saw that, and you gave up half your stack so he could have more. After all, he hasn’t eaten in a week. Papyrus was happy, too, until Sans started making breakfast puns and driving him near-insane. But, like always, the taller brother was smiling broadly as he proclaimed his hatred for them. 

Impact was torn between making puns and denying them, so he ended up sitting on the floor telling what he seemed to think were jokes, and then berating himself. Mettaton couldn’t get enough of that. 

You were just so tired, if you were honest with yourself, but going upstairs for another hour of sleep seemed like it would get everyone all worried about you again. So you stuck it out- that is, until you didn’t. Your head sitting on the table, slumping forward a little in your chair, snoring like an old vacuum cleaner. Sans noticed first, but all he could do was chuckle for a minute before he carried you upstairs. Contrary to your belief, nobody was worried- it had been a long night for you, after all. 

Finally, though, night had fallen again, bringing the prior morning’s promise with it. No movies. Just you and Sans. And you don’t exactly have a plan.

“Well, do you have any ideas, then? Because not only do I not have a plan, I have no clue what you want to do,” you smirk.

He chuckles and pulls you into a backwards hug- you’re finishing cleaning up from dinner. 

“c’moooooon. you can leave all that stuff for later.”  
“Lazybones.”  
“i know, but still.”  
“Pfft. You can do it, then, if you’re so fast at it,” you laugh.

He sticks out a hand, and yanks the dishes into the sink by magic, then pulls them out again onto the drying rack. They aren’t very clean, but they’re done.You lean your head against his and sigh.

“Well, it isn’t perfect, but I can finish them up tomorrow. Thanks.”  
“no problem. DISHES easy.”  
“Oh, lord.”  
“What, didn’t tickle your funny bone?” he asks, smirking and poking you. You jump a little and then giggle. You hate it when you giggle, to be honest. It feels like it’s coming out of a two-year old, but you can’t help it, either. You huff and spin around in the hug, catching him off guard. His face is right in front of of yours now, maybe a centimeter between you, his hands on your waist- a light blue blush laces his cheekbones. 

“Well, well, well. The tables have turned,” you smirk.  
“literally,” he adds, making you snort. 

Suddenly, with a jolt of surprise, you’re upstairs in his bedroom. 

“Oh, okay. Looks like someone here has a plan,” you poke him this time, and he jumps.   
“hey, that’s my move. anyhoo, no, i still don’t have a plan.”  
“Whelp. I-de-as?” with every syllable, you poke him.  
“if you’re gonna be poking me this whole time, you might as well put it to good use,” the words are bold, but his face flushes an even deeper blue. 

You grin- he really likes soul touching, doesn’t he? You can hardly blame him- it always looks like it would feel pretty interesting. 

“Okay, then, c’mon over here,” you break away from his arms and plop on the mattress, up against the wall. “Can’t have you falling on the floor, can we?”  
“you don’t mind, right? it’s not still weird or anything?”  
“Nope, I’m good. Do YOU mind it?”  
That makes him chuckle- “nope. not at all.”

He climbs up next to you, wiggles out of his shirt, then presses his hands to his ribcage- you love this part- and calls out the little inverted heart. Blue on the outside, white underneath. It’s so beautiful, every time. Your eyes sparkle with wonder and energy; it’s just…awesome!

“Every time, it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” you say, dreamily.  
“heh. thanks…” his voice drifts off- you can tell by the look in his eyelights that he feels embarrassed, even vulnerable. You put a hand on is arm.  
“You really don’t mind?”  
“nah, ’s ok. still a little nervous, i guess,” he grins a little, and gestures at his soul- “well, go ahead then.”

You smile- well, time to do this thing. You cup it in your hands, gently poke and prod and stroke and kiss it. He loves it, laughing and blushing and leaning against the wall. You frown, focused. Something new, maybe? Nothing insane, just something new. You try little things- nuzzling your nose against it, blowing on it gently, tickling it with a strand of hair. Every new thing you try seems to make him happier than the last. As the time wears on, you just stroke it slowly, rhythmically, and lean against the wall beside him. You have to admit- you’re getting tired. Meanwhile, he’s bright blue, breathing shakily, unapologetically enjoying this.   
Something new…something new. Your tired brain just decides on something surprising- out of nowhere, you give his soul a tight squeeze. Well. It surprises the heck out of him, at least. He yelps and grabs the sheets in a fistful, shaking happily- you hurriedly let go. It zips back into his chest, and he falls backwards into the pillows as if it knocked him over.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, are you okay?” you ask, crawling forward to check on him. He just laughs- his face is so freakin’ flushed.  
“i’m good, damn, that was good- that was just. um. unexpected,” he grins and meets your eyes. You laugh a little, still a little nervous, and crawl over to lay down by him. 

“Sorry…heh,” you lay a gentle hand on his ribcage, just to know his soul is still beating properly after all that. Well, maybe it’s a bit fast, but it’s okay. He looks your way-

“really, i’m okay. great, even. just gimme a minute.”

You sit there with him, his hand enclosing yours, and wait for him to catch his breath and shake the blush from his cheekbones. When he finally does, he turns to you. 

“thanks,” he says, sounding like his usual lazy self.  
“No problem. C’mere.”

You press your forehead to his, your messy hair falling in your eyes. He pushes it out of the way so he can see them, shining brightly. 

“and whaddya w-” you interrupt his sentence with a kiss, deep and slow. He cups your face in both hands, leaning into it. The rest of the world fades, and all you feel is the peaceful warmth of his bones and the quiet pound of his soul. He breaks away for a second, still resting his head on yours.

“so soft…” you don’t know whether he’s referring to your skin or your lips or your hair, which has started to fall over your eyes again. You run your knuckles over his cheekbones, smiling quietly. Suddenly, he leans closer and hugs you, pressing the length of his body against yours. 

“i love you, sweetheart.”  
“Aww. I love you, too, bonehead.”

You sit like that for a long time, wrapped up in him. His bones are pressed right up against you, because his t-shirt lies, forgotten, on the floor. It doesn’t feel weird- mostly you’re just happy he trusts you. 

And that’s enough.

Fin


	18. Nightmares

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In-depth on Sans nightmares!  
This idea gave me all the angsty stomach lurches so I had to write it!  
Please, feel free to cry!!  
(OwQ)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry it's taken me so long to post stuff!  
Alphdyne is next, I swear!

Sans slips to the side, dodges the white flash of the knife in the air. He’s panting, he’s tired, you can see it in his dim eyelights. He just wants to sleep, he doesn’t want to fight you.  
Or maybe he just wants to die- so he can see his brother again. So he can see you again, wherever you disappeared to. Wherever you went when genocide took over your system.

It’s been a few, what, hours since your fight with him began- but, it doesn’t seem like hours, more like years. It almost isn’t fair to say that it’s you, really. YOU are loving and caring, and kind. Whatever had overcome you that one night in the snow…whatever made you kill Papyrus…that wasn’t you. Sans can even see it now, how tired you look. Like you’re fighting fiercely to keep acting like this. The only hope now is to kill you- kill or be killed, after all. If you die, maybe you’ll reset and fix this.  
Or maybe not.  
But it’s his last hope of seeing his family again.

“what’s that look for? guess i’m doin’ a good job, huh? maybe wanna stop tryna kill me, this would be a lot easier.” he offers, in-between attacks. He pushes you over with a well-aimed bone, sending you on hands and knees in front of him. “but, this job is getting kinda tiring. so if you aren’t gonna come back…if you aren’t gonna bring Paps back…then just DROP DEAD ALREADY!” He moves to swing an arm upwards, to send attacks through your throat, but one only just grazed your cheek when you shout-

“SANS, PLEASE, STOP!” the call is so desperate, so alone- he hesitates. That’s YOUR voice. That’s the you he remembers.

Suddenly, shimmering into being, is another girl, next to you. She has a striped shirt, pale white skin- and rust-colored eyes. You hang your head, but she holds it up by gripping your hair, hard, and yanking it backwards. Tears are spilling down your face, but she just pulls harder. You look at Sans desperately-

“I’m sorry…” you whisper, over and over. “I’m so sorry, it isn’t me…” the girl just laughs at your feeble attempt to reconcile with the “friend” currently holding attacks at your throat. 

“He won’t LISTEN to you, you know. You killed his brother… you deserve this. This is what you get,” she says. You keep crying, blood dripping out of the gash in your cheek, but you don’t protest.

Sans looks from you to the other girl, surprised- and scared. This is not what he expected at all. She looks up at him once she’s gotten you to be quiet-

“What’re you hesitating for? Oh… does it bother you that you’re killing your ‘friend’? Friends don’t kill their friend’s brothers, do they? Finish her off, she deserves it. Dont’cha?”

His soul lurches painfully when she mentions Papyrus- it was so random, what you’d done…your eyes had gone all fuzzy…you’d picked up that knife…even Sans was caught off guard. He couldn’t do anything fast enough, unfortunately. You’d lashed out, made that awful cut in Paps’ neck. And then you’d broken like glass, eyes welling up, running into the woods- and leaving Sans alone. Even now, he tightens his hand around the scarf, the only part of Papyrus that hadn’t scattered into dust. You whimper again, your voice so full of pain and regret it makes him flinch.

“I’m sorry…I’m sorry, please, make her go away…’s not me…” 

Then it clicks- his face darkens.

“she did this to you, didn’t she?”  
“Y-” you start, but the girl interrupts, giving your hair another sharp yank and making you scream. Sans can almost feel his soul split when he hears it, like every bit of pain you feel is his pain, too.  
“SHUT UP! Shut. Up,” she says, calming down and adjusting her tone to something more friendly. “YOU did this to him, you know. If you just die now…it’ll all be over…sounds good, doesn’t it? Yeah…there you go,” she grins as you stop trying to pull away. 

Sans can see this setup from a mile away- she’s manipulating you. You’re just a puppet. 

“Angel…don’t listen to her. she’s trying to hurt ya. you didn’t kill Paps-" he flinches- “she did. we can fix it, i’m not gonna hurtcha, you just gotta stop listening to her. please.”

You lock eyes with him, feel your determination press on your soul. Though you’re tired, starving, and weak, you put every ounce of energy into fighting Chara. You have to help Sans. That’s what he deserves. You pry your hand open, let the knife fall down with a clatter. He slides his bone attacks away-

“that’s it, kiddo. i’m rooting for ya.”

Chara looks angrily from you to Sans, then promptly crushes your resolve. She pulls a few strings in your soul, makes your snarling stomach and wounds stand out so much more than before-

“It’s hard, isn’t it…just end it…you’re the one with the knife. If one of you dies, it’ll all be over. Which of you will it be?”

She presents it like those are the only two options. Black and white. Him or you. Bewildered and in pain, you accept it as the truth. There’s so much fatigue can do to a person. You glance up at Sans- he takes a step back, wary of the decision you’ll make. No. You can’t hurt him. Not only are you too weak and shaky, he’s the last person you’d ever want to kill.  
He’s your friend.  
And you can’t change the past, but you can make up for it now. A life for a life.

You pick up the knife and stand- Chara grins and releases you from her grip, thinking you’ve chosen him. Sans puts up a wall of bones in front of him as defense, making tears start down your face again. 

“S-sans…I’ll reset, okay? I p-promise.”  
“what are you doing…put it down, kid,” he says, as you aim the blade towards yourself. “stop, Angel. put it down!”

He pushes aside his bone attacks and starts walking over to you, hands up, cautioning you from this. You’re only thirteen- you’re just a KID, you can’t do this. Shaking like a leaf, tears rolling down your face, you hold the knife higher, take a few fast breaths, shut your eyes tight. And suddenly yank it towards your chest. You wait for the pain, the blood, wait to die. But it doesn’t happen.  
Nothing happens- you open your eyes. Sans has the other end of the knife gripped in one hand, and is pulling on it. He wrenches it out of your hand and tosses it away- you just slump to the floor, sobbing. 

“Don’t…she’ll hurt you…please, don’t let her hurt you.”

Sans hesitates, then stands between you and Chara.

“what’dya want with the kid, anyway?” he asks, wary as ever, but brave.  
“I’m just having a little fun…can you blame me?” she puts on a pouty face and laughs again, despite her annoyance with him.  
“yup. this is kinda all your fault, actually.”  
“Yeah…thought you’d say that. You can’t get me to go away, though. Doing is so much more fun than watching- I was so sick of watching! And now, I’m a part of all the action again. I never want to go back…and that means through resets, too. I’ll always be here, Sans. I never have to go back. She’s mine.”

That makes him take a step back.

“why can’tcha just leave her alone? she’s just a kid, it’s kinda harsh; ever thought about that?”  
“I was just a kid when I died. And look at me now- I’m fine!” 

She laughs- it’s a brash noise, loud and sharp and angry. At this point, even Sans is starting to lose hope for you, for seeing the real you again. For seeing his bro again. Your voice from behind him mirrors his thoughts-

“It’s okay, Sans…I can do it. I’ll just stay away from you guys. I won’t even fall into Mt. Ebott- you don’t need to care. I can do it,” your words are brave, full of determination, and you even stand up to say them, but you wince and swipe at tears, too.  
He can’t ignore how messed up you look- pale, shaky, and thin with hunger. She must have been starving you, god. You have gashes splitting open your face and arms, places where you brushed against deadly attacks. But it’s your face that really gets him- you look so terrified. So, so, terrified that he’ll leave you with this freak. But, you’re also determined. You wouldn’t back out if he said that’s what he wanted. Sans soul feels like it’ll tear apart with emotion. You’re a CHILD. You don’t deserve to have to carry the weight of the world on your shoulders.

“i can’t afford not to care anymore, kiddo. now get behind me.”

You quickly step behind him. He’s roughly your height, now. Before he makes any moves, you hug him from behind, shaking with relief. He jumps and turns around a little, so you let go and step away.

“’s ok. now, lemme dunk this brat.”  
“Okay,” you say, nodding. “Be careful…she’s dangerous.”  
“yeah. i can tell.”

Chara swiftly grabs the knife Sans had discarded on the floor. Before he can even fully register that the fight had started, she makes the first slash with it. She’s faster now that she doesn’t have to hide in your weak body. Fortunately, Sans is good at dodging- no, that’s an understatement. Sans is frickin’ perfect at dodging. Unfortunately, so is Chara. Neither can land a hit on the other, and Sans is already tired from earlier. 

The fight goes on for another hour. You’re leaning against a pillar, safely behind Sans and his protective wall of bones. He can’t take much more of this- you check your pockets for something, anything you can heal yourself with. You might be able to take over for him, if only for a minute. Nothing, if you don’t count pocket lint. Even so, you check the lint, hoping it might have some unprecedented power. It doesn’t.  
Sans is sweating, attacks growing weaker, looking like dying might not be that bad an option in comparison to this. When it’s his turn again, and Chara can’t do anything, you call out.

“Sans! Look at me! Don’t give up. Paps wouldn’t want you to give up.”

He looks at you and feels whatever little sliver of determination he has swell. You’re right. Papyrus wouldn’t want him to give up- no way. He turns back to Chara, makes sure she notices how weak he is, then makes his strongest attack yet. It throws her completely, and one lucky bone finds its way through her leg, pinning her to the floor. She looks down at it, looking almost bored and impressed at the same time. 

“Oh, that’s fun. Thanks for that,” she says. “Yeah, heh, watch this.”

She shimmers, and suddenly, she’s out of the trap, woundless and unharmed. 

“What? Was that not allowed? You’ve broken the rules, but you can’t handle it when I do? That’s really sad, honestly. Anyway, bye!”

She throws the knife, expertly, but Sans dodges it. It whizzes by, but there’s a pause. There isn’t the telltale noise of the weapon hitting the floor.

“ya missed.” he says, wondering why everything seems on edge now.  
“No, I didn’t,” Chara giggles and points.

He turns around, and you’re standing stock-still, knife imbedded in your chest. You cough, let out a little mewl of pain, and blood bubbles out of your mouth- then you fall down.

“ANGEL-” he runs to you and picks you up- but it’s too late, anyway. You catch ahold of his hoodie sleeve, like if you just grip it hard enough, it’ll save you. Sans is panting, telling you to just hold on. But that isn’t how death works. Your soul hovers out of your chest and shatters into a thousand pieces of red light, leaving you dead in his arms. He checks you once, quickly, before you die-

HP: 0/20  
AT: 0  
DF: 0  
*She just wanted to go home.  
*She’s so sorry.

His eyesights go blank, and a grin spreads across his face. A hollow, empty one. There isn’t time to feel anything now. All there is to do now is kill the brat who did this to you. When he looks at your shining eyes, the setting flickers like a light- you, riddled with fever, you, broken on the ground, golden leaves stuck in your hair, you, dead a million different ways-

He wakes up begging for you to come back.

“Sans?” you rub your eyes and put a sleepy hand on his shoulder. “Another one? That’s the third time this week.”

He looks over at you- you’re here. You aren’t dead, or hurt, or starving, or in danger. He shakes with relief and puts a hand on yours, trying to see if it’s real. You’re okay. Papyrus is okay. You sit up so you can hold him some, and rub his back comfortingly.

“It’s okay. We’re all okay…hey, it’s alright,” he looks up at you, at your endless kindness and worried smile, and slowly lays back down again. “There you go. Geez, you haven’t been this shaken up in a while. What happened?”

He doesn’t respond for a minute- it was all so real, so solid, but it was just a nightmare. He takes a deep breath-

“doesn’t matter. just a stupid dream, anyway. just happy everyone’s ok.”  
“Yeah. We’re okay. It was just a stupid dream.”

He hugs you, still shaking like he’d run a marathon. 

“i’m good now. thanks. can we go back to sleep?”  
“Sure, bonehead.”

So, you do, sliding your thumb back and forth across his smooth knuckles until you fall asleep. Sans has to look at you every few minutes to make sure you’re still here, and that you’re still okay, but he’s alright now that he’s awake. Looking at how peaceful and safe you are makes him smile. Whatever happens, you’re safe as long as he has anything to say about it. But even he goes back to dozing in minutes. 

Lazybones.

Fin


	19. Sleepy Pictures

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is all fluff until the end,  
and I do not regret my life choices.

You wake up late- a lot later than usual. In fact, Sans is already awake. When you blink open your eyes, he’s stuffing his phone in his pocket, like he just finished using it for something; you’re too tired to honestly care what. You don’t only feel physically tired: you feel emotionally tired, too. Kind of mopey and unmotivated.

“mornin’, sleepyhead,” he says, grinning.  
“Morning…” you stifle a yawn and a sigh simultaneously. “What time is it?”

He snickers and stretches.

“nearly eleven now, longest you’ve slept in weeks.”  
“Oh. Cool. Sorry if I kept you in here,” you shrug lightly and bury half of your face in the pillow, wanting to stay there all day. 

Sans doesn’t recognize the sadness in your face just then; you’ve never had very many sad days- at least- outside of the days something really bad happens. You’re generally a really positive person, actually. But everyone has bad days, and this is one of yours. 

“Can we go back to sleep?” you ask.  
“you sure? you’re usually starving by now- d’ya want me to make ya somethin’?”  
“If you want to.”

You glance down at a piece of hair in your eyes and pull it in and out of focus. Sans doesn’t show that he’s worried, but instead plasters on a grin and shrugs-

“ok, i could use some meat on my bones anyway,” you smile a little, but for once you can’t muster the energy to laugh. He presses onward- “you wanna eat in here?”  
“Mm-hmm,” you mumble.

He doesn’t bother to hide it, and touches your forehead gently with a hand- well, no fever, at least. He was starting to worry he’d given you something. You sigh, feeling worse that you’re making him worry, but too tired to say anything. He rubs your arm-

“i’m here if you wanna talk about anything, sweetheart. imma go make toast.”  
“Thanks,” you say, wishing he would just go so you can let some of this out. 

Luckily, he doesn’t linger long, and hops up to go make food. You don’t know why you feel this way- some memory, maybe a dream sitting in your subconscious.  
You feel tears pricking your eyes. Why?! You don’t want to CRY, that’s…stupid! There’s no reason to cry, and besides, when Sans comes back in, he’ll freak. You glance over your shoulder at the bedroom door, and once you’ve confirmed he isn’t there, you swipe angrily at your eyes. Stupid. Stupid tears. They remind you of when Ali died…when Caster died, when you thought Sans had died, the explosion of attacks and blood in that building…

‘Stop thinking about that, you might cry more,’ you scold yourself mentally. ‘No point in thinking about it, there’s nothing you can do now.’

If Papyrus hadn’t gone in when he did, blocked that bullet for Sans…you feel the tears start down your face…

‘Stop thinking about it…’

If Sans’ magic bubble had popped instead of yours, making you start over from eleven years ago… you feel your knees tuck in to your chest, try not to sniff or make any noise.

‘Stop it…!’

You finally just pull the covers over your head, make a thick, near-suffocating cocoon of them so you don’t have to worry about being caught. Crying SHOULDN’T be a bad thing, but you don’t want him to get all worried again. Ugh, it’s so hard to try to cover up all of these emotions- you don’t know how his mask doesn’t break all the time.   
You take a few deep breaths (which aren’t very effective with the hot, stifling air in the cage of blankets) to ground yourself. Stop all the pointless crying. Slowly unfold yourself. But when the first burst of fresh air hits your face, you hear Sans climbing the stairs, talking. And it crushes your resolve not to cry, for whatever reason. The tears start again, and you pull the sheets back up over your head.

“hey, sweetheart, yours burned a little, do you mind…what are you doing?”

Every guy has a moment where they ENTIRELY misinterpret a situation- this particular time, he mistook your shaking under the sheets for laughter. Thinking you’re trying to scare him or something, he sets the plates on the floor and walks over to the bed- then he flops down, half on top of you. Unprepared and surprised, you shout-

“H-hey!” your voice is nasally, and it’s obvious that you’re trying to catch your breath. You half-hide a sniff in your sleeve, wondering what the hell he thinks he’s doing, trying to prank you while you’re crying. 

Confused and surprised, he pulls back the covers and realizes his mistake- 

“oh, geez, what’s wrong?” he asks, scrambling off of you. 

But you turn your back to him, flipping the blanket back up again so you don’t have to look him in the eyes.

“shit,” he mutters, feeling like an idiot.   
“shit,” you mutter, feeling worse.

He sit on the edge of the bed and rubs your back through the layers of blankets- well. He hopes it’s your back, anyway. The situation will be hilarious, maybe in a month, but right now it’s incredibly awkward. You feel horrible for no apparent reason, and on top of that for not being able to pull yourself together. Sans just tried to freaking scare you while you were crying, so now he doesn’t know what to do. 

“hey, what’s wrong?” he tries again. “i’m really sorry, i didn’t know you were upset.”  
“I know,” you say, quietly. “I’m s-sorry. I don’t know w-w-why I’m c-crying, I’m s-sorry, I’m sorry,” you flinch at how stupid it sounds. 

Sans pulls the covers back again- you still have your back to him, but you don’t try to pull them back up, which is a start. He lays down next to you, spooning you a little bit as he pulls you into a backwards hug. You don’t resist, either, but instead fit into it. It feels good- safe. 

“sorry you’re havin’ a bad day,” he says, softly.   
“Not a bad day. It’s only t-the morning, right? We s-still have time…” your voice drifts off. “I’m s-sorry…I’m sorry for everything…” you take a deep breath to keep from descending back into tears.

Sans asks, confused-

“what’s ‘everything’?”  
“Not being able to save everyone, and for dying, and, and, for everything…Sans?”  
“what’s up?”  
“Please don’t ever die… like they did.”  
“ok,” he says, giving you a little squeeze.  
“Promise me. Please.”

He tenses a little- he hates promises, always has. But you need this, really, truly, desperately need this. Just when you think he’ll say no, he speaks-

“ok. promise.”

You turn around in the hug so you can hug him back. He can’t help but smile a little, breathing in the scent of your shampoo and tears. 

“’s ok, sweetheart. i’ve gotcha.”  
“Thank you,” you hug him tighter- he chuckles.  
“loosen up, this hug is BONE-crushing.”  
“Heh. Okay,” and you do.  
“c’mon, let’s get that toast. you wanna read or watch TV or somethin’?”

You nod-

“Toast first.”

It’s really good- though, like he warned, one corner of yours is burnt. You just snap it off and let him have it. For whatever reason, he loves slightly burnt toast. You munch on yours in silence and let him do the same. When you’re done, you’re covered in toast crumbs, and your hands are sticky with butter and jam. As you lick at them, you slowly put yourself back together. Deep breaths, dry your eyes, push away all those painful thoughts from earlier as best you can.   
You give Sans a little kiss on the skull-

“Thanks, bonehead. What’d I do without you?”  
“you’d make your own toast, for starters,” he chuckles- that makes you smile.  
“Hey- let’s go over to Paps’ today. That’d be fun, since he hasn’t been over for breakfast in a while. Huh?”  
“sounds pun-derful.”  
“Pfft. Better get all that out now so he doesn’t flip his lid later. He thinks you’re practically teaching Impact to cuss.”  
“what, would cussing be better?”  
“No! Don’t do that!” you laugh.   
“nah, sounds good: no more puns, just cussing.”  
“Oh lord, we’re screwed.”  
“yup, i’ll teach him everything,” he nods firmly.  
“Oh lord,” you shake your head dramatically and tilt your face at the ceiling. 

There’s a few more minutes of arguing, in which he decides he will teach Impact puns ABOUT cuss words, making you laugh so hard you spill your little pile of crumbs all over him. He just picks them off his shorts and eats them as he talks. 

“You’re crazy!” you say, snickering a little.  
“you, too.”  
“Yeah, well, I’m at least the good crazy, you’re just plain crazy!”  
“really?”  
“Yes!” you declare, sticking a finger in the air, Papyrus-style. That makes him laugh, making you laugh. You suddenly think back to earlier, when you first woke up-

“Hey, what were you using your phone for this morning, if you don’t mind me asking?”  
“takin’ pictures.”  
“Of what?”  
“you.”  
“While I was sleeping?! That’s so creepy, dude!” You laugh again, “I wanna see!”

He blushes, but pulls out his phone. In the photos, you find a selfie of him with you in the background, asleep in one of his arms. That makes YOU blush.

“T-that-” you stutter.  
“you look cute when you’re sleepin’, and you’re always up before me, so i never get to see,” he explains. You smile a little, blushing harder.  
“Thanks? Sorry, I mean, I’m just sleeping. Like people do sometimes.”  
“yeah, but you’re good at it.”  
“Bonehead,” you nudge him and laugh.  
“legendary fartmaster.”  
“Lazybones.”  
“crazy.”  
“Are you calling ME crazy, sir? I challenge thee to a duel!”  
“woah, when’d you go all medieval on me? also, how will a duel work?”

You answer by smacking him with a pillow. He smacks you back, but you block it with yours. The more he tries to smack you, the more you fight back, until he has a pillow in each hand, and you have ahold of the sheets, trying to throw them over him like a net.

“Avast ye!” you shout.  
“i’m not going easy on ya!”  
“I’d like to see you beat me, fiend!”  
“good thing you will-!” he shortcuts behind you and hits you with one of his pillows. You spin around in time to catch it full in the face, and then toss your blanket over him- he trips on one of the corners of it and falls, caught.

Laughing triumphantly, you scoop him up. He doesn’t resist, but rather lets you. Since he’s all bones, he’s fairly light to carry. You prod back enough of the blanket so he can stick his head out- he looks fairly chill, but mostly he’s just tired.

“You look surprisingly comfortable for somebody getting captured,” you quip.  
“eh- blankets are soft. and i’m safe, right? i’m comfy.”  
“Safe?! Nay, ruffian!” you jump up and down, spinning, trying to get him to be at least a little dizzy.  
He grins- your hair goes in a zillion different directions while you jump, and he doesn’t get dizzy, anyway. When you’re done, you’re panting and tired, while Sans just looks smug.

“yeah. safe.”   
“Fine. Let’s get ready and call to see if Paps is free to hang out.”  
“ok.”  
“So- can we prank him at all? Like we used to?”

His face lights up-

“hell yes.”  
“Nothing too bad, okay?”  
“fine…hmm…” he thinks, drifting off. Suddenly, you have an idea-  
“Oh, I got it. Let’s give Impact a copy of 1001 Puns, then put a puzzle-book book cover on it instead, so that he THINKS Impact is learning puzzles, when he’s really learning jokes. Wait, can he read yet?”  
“yup- he’s a smart babybones. got it from his dad.”  
“He did, didn’t he?” you grin.  
“still kinda weird to think of him as a dad. well, ’s a good idea. but i might leave you to it, because the moment i get over there, i’m taking a nap.”  
“Why?”  
“you’re there, Paps is there- safe place to nap.”

He doesn’t say it fully, but you know what he means. He feels like nothing bad can happen to him when his brother is around, or when you’re around. Having both of you at the same place is just perfect. And when Sans feels safe, he sleeps. You nuzzle your nose against his nasal bone-

“Okay, lazybones. If you say so.”  
He grins- “glad you’re feelin’ better, then.”  
“I am- thank you.”  
“no problem.”

You hear a sudden, rapid knocking on the front door- it sounds urgent. You look out, a little concerned, but Sans just hops down. 

“whelp, i’ll kiss ya later. c’mon, let’s go find out who’s turned our door into a punching bag.”   
“Okay, then,” you grin. 

When Sans opens it, Alphys is there, eyes shining bright as ever. She’s holding a large stack of papers, at least a hundred deep- 

“‘sup, Alphys?” he asks.  
“Sans, I cracked it! I found it!”  
“what?”  
“The missing variable in the exploitation of the void theory!”

Sans jaw D R O P S, and he laughs out loud- Alphys squeals and jumps up and down.

“show me, where is it? have you built anything yet?!”  
“No, I have the plans here, I’ll need your help, but all my evidence- it lines up! everything, I ran the numbers, a-and…we could do it! Really, really do it!”

You’re bewildered as hell- but Sans looks back at you, eyelights large and bright. You decide whatever it is, it’s a good thing if it can make him smile like that. Though, you can’t help but ask;

“What’s happening?”

Sans grabs both of your hands, grinning so wide, and- and real, you have to smile a bit, too. 

“We can visit all of the other timelines at once. And they can all visit us- we can create an inclusive plane of reality! A middle ground that all of the other us-es can visit, and, like, talk and stuff! It was only a theory, because there was always a missing variable, but she FOUND it! This is,” he laughs out loud again, “insane!”

You can process everything tomorrow. For now, you grin with the two of them and let them talk out their own plans.

Fin


	20. Toaster Fires

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kisses! Fire! Science! Math! Sans holed up in the basement all day!
> 
> Wait, Sans holed up in the basement all day-
> 
> This is all fluff, everything resolves next chapter. Enjoy yourselves!

Sans doesn’t come up from the basement- it’s nearly 10 PM.

Again.

You sigh, pull on your hoodie, and trudge out through the snow, around the side of the house, and down the steps through the little secret door.

Again.

And you find him with his head on his desk, asleep, surrounded by empty coffee mugs and blueprints and broken pencils.

Again.

“Hey, sleepybones, we gotta go upstairs,” you whisper, shaking his shoulder lightly.  
“mm-hmm,” he mumbles, rubbing his eyesockets.

He stands, stretches, and winces a little as he pops his back. God, he’s tired. You smile gently-

“What’ve you got done?”  
“got the main body of the thing designed, just need, *yawn* some time to fix up all the magic.”  
“Good job- it’ll be done in no time, right? And then we can go back to a normal sleep schedule.”  
“’m sorry, sweetheart, i promise it’ll be worth it in the end, just gimme a few more days,” he sighs, patting a blueprint with one hand.  
“Don’t be,” you say confidently. “This is the hardest you’ve worked in ages- and I know it’ll pay off. You should take as long as you need, double-check everything. We don’t want something bad to happen, huh? But you also need some sleep, ya doof, or you’ll be too tired to do anything.”  
“no need to tell me twice. c’mon, i’m BONE-tired,” he yawns again, and you kiss him on the skull as he heads for the door.  
“Sometimes I wish I had a job,” you admit, “Something to, I dunno, better society, I guess. Something to do… you know, it’d be cool if you wanted to turn magic science into a career- you’d be great at it!”

He chuckles, his slippers crunching through the snow as you go around the side of the house yet again-  
“not a chance. you couldn’t get me to get a job if it was the end of the world- but this IS kinda satisfying, not gonna lie. ‘sides, you already have a job, you can do it for the both of us.”  
“What? I don’t have a job!” you say, surprised.  
“well, technically you’re still ambassador for the monsters. you’d actually have a bunch of political power in court, stuff like that. god, my brain is still going a million miles an hour, geez,” he rubs his skull with one hand, and you smirk.  
“You’re just smart. You can’t help it.”

You bump into him a little, and he just laughs. He climbs the steps and opens the door for you, to which you grin and thank him. Even tired, he still treats you like a frickin’ princess- though, instead of getting in bed, he just flops on the couch face-first and starts snoring like a lawnmower.  
You shake your head, still laughing, and pick him up as best you can. He’s light, but now that he’s asleep, he’s a lot heavier than normal; dead weight. After managing the stairs, you put him under the covers, climb in after him, and go out like a light.

“Night, bonehead,” you yawn, “Don’t get up too early.”

After you fall asleep, the opens an eyesocket briefly to make sure you’re settled, then wraps an arm around you to hold you closer. Then, he falls asleep for real.

Contrary to your warning, the next morning, he gets up incredibly early. Letting you wake up to the soft shine of cloudy sunlight on your face and a note stuck on the doorhandle- it reads,

in the basement for a bit. Alph’s dropping in around eight. i’ve had breakfast, and i left out stuff if you want some. love u  
-bonehead

You can’t help but sigh. Another day of him down in the basements, and probably another day visiting Tori or Papyrus or one of your other friends- not that you don’t like hanging out with them- but it’s early been two weeks now, and you know they might be getting a little tired of your company. But he’s working on something he’s passionate about- you don’t entirely understand it yet, but the main idea is that you can exploit a spot in the void enough to “build” stuff there without it being lost in spacetime. That’s the science part- the magic part says that with certain doors, you can set one up so you can walk into this place at will.  
You don’t know how any other universe, er, alternates will find it, or how you’ll get out, but you trust that they’ve thought it all through. Mostly? You just don’t want anything to go wrong, and you never see him again. He’s anxious, too, you can tell by the way he triple-checks his calculations and writes as clearly as he can so he doesn’t use the wrong numbers. Speaking of numbers- you check the time. It’s nearly eight now, Alphys should be over any minute. You’d better get ready.  
You change, snag a book, your phone, headphones, and a heavy coat, and step downstairs. You’ve just popped your toast in the toaster when you hear the timid knock on the door.

“Hey, Alphys!”  
“O-oh, hello! I was, um, w-wondering where S-sans is? Is he awake? A-am I t-too early-”  
“No, he’s in the basement. Woke up hours ago, from what I can gather. Um- hey, d’you mind if I ask you a quick question?” you ask, already wincing at how big of a hypocrite you’re going to be.  
“S-sure- um, w-what is it?”  
“It’s just- what are side affects of no sleep on magic?”  
“Oh! Um, on Sans?”  
“Well, yeah, but please don’t tell him I asked,” you ask, smiling awkwardly.  
“Um. S-sure- okay. With skeletons,” her stutter fades in her little nerd ramble, you notice, “lack of sleep affects the strength of their magic. Since magic is the only thing holding them together, and it’s diluted, it starts going a lot faster to make up for it not being strong enough. Eventually, if they don’t get any sleep, or food, or necessary things, their bodies will start to shut down. Stop being able to move without random parts falling off and having a hard time sticking back on, no attacks to speak of, and irritability. Then, there’s a long, um, coma thing. Some people call it falling down- all outside magic shuts down in order to maintain core soul magic. Oh, geez-”

You must look scared, because she stops. 

“That’s not happening, is it?!” you ask.  
“No-no-no, not at all! Stuff that extreme would o-only happen after w-w-weeks without food, sleep, even things as s-simple as, um, talking to others help maintain healthy magic l-levels. At the very m-most, he m-might have a s-slightly increased magic sp-peed, but not anything like that. Sorry, I d-didn’t mean to, heh, scare you. I used t-to wonder, t-too, so I d-did a lot of research on it,” she explains.  
“Why did you wonder about this?” you ask, ignoring the toaster dinging form the kitchen.  
“He u-used to work w-with me, a really l-long while back. He had a really b-bad habit of working for hours and then just, *bonk*. P-passing out. Heh- it w-was kind of funny. I d-drew on his face, once.”

You laugh, but then your nose perks up- is something burning? Just as Alphys starts to ask, the kitchen lights up: the toaster is on fire. You shout, then tear off your sweater and run inside. Smoke has filled the kitchen, so it’s hard to see or breathe, but the source of the thing is bright enough that you can beat it out. Coughing, you open a window, scan the room for any other issues, and walk back to the front door. 

“Oh geez- are you alright?!” Alphys asks, checking you for burns. 

You wince at a little one on your inner arm, but it’s not anything worth worrying about. Mostly you just need to get all of this smoke out of your house. And eyes. And hair. And lungs. Still hacking on it, you go outside so it isn’t as bad. 

“I’m fine- but now everything we own is going to smell like smoke for a month. Dang. *cough, cough* I need to go tell Sans before he finds it himself, c’mon.”

You lead the way to the back of the house. She’s following you like a nervous duckling, but is quiet. After walking in, you find he hasn’t made much progress- he’s thudding his skull against the desk repeatedly, muttering. When he sees you, though, he jumps.

“woah, what the hell happened to you?!” He runs over, but you wave it off.  
“Don’t hug me, I smell like smoke. I caught the toaster on fire, just thought you should know- I’m going to go clean it up. Oh, and Alphys is here.” you jab your thumb back in her general direction and turn to go, but he catches your elbow.  
“hold up- did you burn yourself?”  
“A little, but don’t use your magic on me, you need it to stay awake. I’ll put something on it, I’ll be fine.”  
“ok, ‘f you say so. c’mere, i’m sorry i got up so early,” he sighs. You turn to him long enough for him to kiss you and then cough- “geez, you really do smell like smoke, dont’cha?”  
“I tried to warn you, bonehead.”  
“yeah, and i wanted to kiss ya anyway.”  
“Pfft. Anyway, I have to go clean some stuff, including me. I’ll be back down with sandwiches later, okay? Have fun.”  
“ok. thanks, sweetheart.”  
“Welcome!” You let them do their thing, but the moment the basement door shuts behind you, you sigh and scrub at your smoke-filled eyes. 

For the next two hours, you scrub the smoke out of the kitchen, shower, and throw out your ruined clothes. Finally, when it’s all fixed up again and you want nothing more than to crash on the couch, it’s time to make lunch. You eat your own thing first- you feel better after eating something, since breakfast was a bit of an afterthought through the clean up. It feels less irritable.  
After making theirs and brining it to them, your mood improves again. They both have an air of excited energy about them. Apparently, Sans’ model not only worked, but was better than Alphys’ original plan. Meaning the DT levels going into it didn’t need to be as extreme, and the whole process would only take a day or two more! This doesn’t have to stretch on- what a relief.

When Alphys leaves later that night, you go to check on Sans- he’s banging his head on the desk again, and you come in and rub his back gently.

“What’s up?” you ask, gently.  
“this *bang* damn *bang* thing *bang* doesn’t *bang* fit *bang* anywhere.”  
“Hey, stop, you’ll break your skull. Show me.”

He sits up, sighing, and points at one equation near the bottom of a VERY complicated string of them. You squint at it, confused as heck. He just looks at you blankly, too tired for this.

“I’m not giving up, and neither are you. Explain it to me, step by step, like you’re trying to show this to a twelve year old. What would you say?”

He goes through it, slowly; by the end, you understand, but you’re just as stuck as he is. He groans-

“we’ll never be able to get this done, god.”

You grab both his shoulders and turn him to face you.

“Look at me,” you say firmly. He does. “You’re not giving up on me, Sans. You’re smart, I know you are, you can’t let this stupid problem take down your whole arsenal. You aren’t a quitter.”  
“i am, actually.”  
“Not today, you aren’t. Where’d you get your numbers for this?”

He walks you backwards though the endless problems, showing his work and proofs. It all adds up…until the end. You’re really confused, he can prove everything he did- wait!

“There, right there! What’s twenty-eight divided by seven?”  
“four, why?” he asks, completely bewildered.  
“You wrote nine!” You say triumphantly, smacking the table. His eyelights light up- it was just one stupid wrong number that had ruined the whole thing! He pulls out a new sheet of paper and works it all through again- it works. 

“it- it works…it WORKS!” he pumps his fists in the air and grins.  
“I told you you could do it,” you laugh, letting him write out the answer carefully before he responds.  
“you know what this means, right? this is the last of the math, i hand all the science and magic and building over to Alphys. i’m done!”

What a relief- your head is spinning from all those equations, for one, but you’re also relieved he won’t have to be holed up down here anymore. 

“That’s great! Thank god.”  
“yeah. i was kinda getting sick of this place, TIBIA honest,” he’s rolling up all his blueprints and putting them in a long canister, and sweeping all of his papers into messy piles to stuff in folders tomorrow.  
“You know,” you smirk, walking your fingers up his back playfully, “I was starting to miss you.”

He looks up from the last of the piles and grins, catching ahold of your hand with one of his and putting the other on your waist.

“really? i was just gonna say the same thing.”

You have to laugh. He’s tired as hell, hands covered in pencil marks, and he still manages to do this to you- you’re a giggling, blushing mess. He holds out one hand, still holding yours, and then you’re waiting to silent music, counting the steps under your breath so you don’t step on his feet. After a while, it slows and comes to a stop. 

You don’t even wait for a signal- you just kiss him and let the rest happen of it’s own accord. Both of your arms wrap around his neck, his pull you in at your waist. When you pull away for air, he just dives in for another, deeper. The whole length of your body is against his, and he’s so warm and inviting, you’re so soft and sweet, it feels like the world disappears in it. Just like it always does. A little bit of magic sparks out, making it feel almost electric, sending a little shiver through you. This time, you both need air. 

“damn.” he says, chuckling.  
“Yeah. When did you get so good at this?”  
“oh, it was me? i could’ve sworn it was you,” he grins smugly and lets you kiss him one more time before just giving him a hug.  
“God, I needed that,” you admit.  
“yup. me, too.”  
“Let’s go get all the pencil off your hands, huh?”  
“ok…one more…” he leans in again- you aren’t complaining.

Fin


	21. The Friend Closet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Very long chapter filled with low-key angst, AUs, and weird soul junk, so strap in!!

It’s all finally built, all set up. Checked and double-checked. The “new universe”, that is. It’s just sitting there, a door rigged to a little mechanical frame, whirring and beeping. You’re supposed to keep an eye on the tech-deck while Sans and Alphys run a few tests, opening the door and tossing in apples and rocks and things. Whatever’s happening, you can tell they’re less than pleased with the results. Papyrus is here, too, waiting beside you. He’s rambling nervously, which is never a good sign- he’s typically very direct, if a little flamboyant. You don’t even really know why he’s here- he just showed up a few hours in. 

“hey, Paps, would’cha come over here a sec?” Sans calls, casually. But you can see how on edge he is from across the room. Something is definitely wrong.

You watch them intently, trying to understand what they’re saying. But they’re hushed, and it’s not like you can read their lips. They’re arguing, you can tell that much. Sans doesn’t seem to like what Papyrus is suggesting, and Papyrus is really pressing it, you think. At least, that’s what it looks like- you have to pity Alphys, standing there awkwardly beside them.  
It goes on for a while, and soon you give up. You’ll find out what’s happening sooner or later. The door is whirring- you’d finally understood the plan when they'd set it up- you’ll just, walk in. And *boom*, new universe. Supposedly the first step that someone takes in there is enough to solidify it, but if it isn’t stable enough it’ll collapse in on itself. Which is the current worry. You sit your chin on your hand, elbow sitting on the desk. It’s dirty, pulled out of some supply closet to set the controls up. You scribble in the thin layer of dust-

(y/n)

You stare at it a second, bored out of your brain, and then add,

(y/n) is the bomb.com

That makes you smirk- you glance back up at the skelebro’s argument. It’s heated, and finally Alphys breaks in, speaking clear enough for you to hear-

“S-stop, this isn’t getting us anywhere. Sans, P-papyrus is right. We c-c-can make it p-perfectly safe, I p-promise.”  
“yeah, just like the amalagmates,” Sans snaps, making Alphys back down immediately. He turns back to Papyrus- “i’m going in, i can take the injections or whatever, but you aren’t going. and neither is she.”

Fed up, you jump to your feet and walk over. The tech-deck can watch itself. It’s been three hours of sitting, and man, does it feel good to get back on your feet again.

“What’s happening?” you demand.

Papyrus sighs and turns to you first-

“They need someone with high determination levels to go in there first,” he nods to the door, “And Sans insists he go, even though he has virtually none and would need injections of it. Which is exactly how that one Sans from the dream melted his eyesocket. I could go, I wouldn’t need as many, but you’re obviously the best choice seeing as you already have so much determination.”

You nod, matter of factly.

“Great. Do I need anything, or do I just walk in?”  
“no. you aren’t going. if that thing collapses, you’re lost in spacetime,” Sans argues.  
“Well, then I…” you pause, “I just reset and wait a few months, right? But you guys have it all worked out, not to mention I’m the best prepared for this.”  
“that’s the thing- you aren’t conscious in non-physical planes. ‘f you get stuck in there, no resets.”  
“Oh…” you drift off.  
“and anyway, you shouldn’t just toss your life away like it’s nothin’. we NEED you here. you aren’t going.”

You think, nervous and kind of ashamed. You really ARE just ready to throw it all away, since you have infinite chances…but they don’t. Alphys pipes up, quietly.

“If we gave YOU a DT injection, the chances of failure would be a-around 0.001 percent. It would basically guarantee your safety- but,” she fidgets her claws, “i-it w-would hurt. And t-then you m-might have a f-few temporary s-side affects.”  
“How temporary?” you ask- this could work.  
“O-oh! Um, a f-few minutes, a-at most.”  
“What are they?”  
“Nobody knows what happens to humans if they overpower their DT levels- yours is already as high as they come. With an injection, you might have, well, temporary magic. Since magic is a reflection of the s-s-soul, you might have some outward sign of, erm, you? I don’t know, but it wouldn’t last long, I swear!”  
“Sans? How’s that- 0.001 percent chance of failure.”

He’s quiet; you can tell he’s fighting a mental battle inwardly.

“. . .i. . .”  
“I can handle it.”  
“. . .i can’t. . .”

You hug him and feel him tense up. He says, under his breath,

“i don’t want you to get hurt again, ok? i can’t lose you again,” his voice is so full of pain you fight back little tears-  
“I know. It’s okay. I’m gonna be fine. Sans, I promise you I’ll be fine.”  
“. . .ok.”

You break away and smile softly, hold his hand, then turn to Alphys.

“Alrighty then, how’s this work?”  
“Um, t-this way, it shouldn’t t-take long.”

You grab Papyrus’ hand in your free one, and he softens at the stubborn determination gleaming in your eyes. You lead the brothers down the hall after Alphys; she leads you into a creepy room with a large machine in the middle. One wall is made entirely out of slightly warped mirror. The whole place is covered in dust- you honestly aren’t sure what kind it is.

“U-um, I’m not as used to p-putting determination INTO things as t-taking it out, b-but I can do this…I’ve never done it t-to someone conscious b-before, either…” she shakes her head to clear it, not wanting to scare you. “Here, sit here.”

You sit on a little rickety desk and look away from the needle she pulls out. You’d never liked little flu shots, much less anything THAT big. Sans comes and rubs your back comfortingly.

“you can always say you don’t want to do this.” he says, searching your eyes. You shut them tightly and shake your head.  
“I’m fine. Just don’t like needles much, is all. Um,” you feel childish asking, but you need it. “Can I hold your hand while she does it?”  
“yeah, ‘course.” 

You try to focus on his smooth thumb running over your knuckles and not on the gigantic syringe in the corner of your vision. Papyrus comes and crouches in front of you, too.

“Needles are nothing to be afraid of! You’re very brave, you know. For all of us- how’s this- when this is all over, we can go to the surface and get ice cream?”  
“Yeah,” you take a deep breath, “Yeah, good idea.”

Suddenly you feel the sharp pain in your arm and yelp, but you have the common sense to stay still so it isn’t worse. When Alphys pulls the needle out, you notice it doesn’t feel like a regular shot. Your arm isn’t sore or anything- it just feels warm, really warm, right over your soul. 

“That’s it? It’s kinda warm…it’s not as bad as I thought!” you smile and move to stand, but Alphys puts a hand on your shoulder.  
“Hold on a second. Not yet.”  
“Why…ow. Ow, ow, OW,” you shout, pressing your hand over your chest- it feels like someone is trying to set your soul on fire. You’re scraping at your shirt, trying to beat out the flames that aren’t really there. You ramble, trying not to scream- “Maybe this wasn’t a good idea, ow, stop it, stop it, STOP IT!”

Your panic seems to leak into Sans and Papyrus, but Alphys knows- there’s nothing you can do now but wait for it to run its course. You automatically turn to Sans for help, but he doesn’t know what to do either, so he just hugs you tightly, lets you clutch on to him like a life preserver. The pain starts climbing out from your soul up into your head, into your back and shoulder blades and legs, and finally resting its full, blazing power in your eyes. It climbs, and you can hear someone screaming, but you don’t know if it’s you or someone else, it’s so distant. Then it goes out, all at once, like a snuffed candle.  
You open your eyes, get a feel for your surroundings. At some point, you ended up on the floor, alone. The whole room is glowing red. You blink, thinking it might just be the red tint in your eyes, and then check your motor skills to see if it’s Chara…no, you have full control. You look up at one of the walls, the mirror one, and gasp-  
It’s you…but, is it? You’re you, but you have a little red halo over your head, two softly glowing wings, and as you stand, you realize your feet aren’t touching the floor. It’s your eyes, though, that confuse you the most- they’ve gone ALL red, not just the colored parts, but the white, too- like an alien. You turn around- where is everyone?! Did they run away? But no, they’re just frozen in place behind you.

“G-guys?” You ask- your voice comes out loud, though you’d meant to whisper.  
“(Y/n)?” Papyrus asks back; you aren’t surprised, somehow. He was always the one to see through the physical and straight into the heart. He knows that even though you look different, you’re just as scared and confused as they are. “Is that you?”  
“Yes…” you try to talk as quietly as you can, but still it echoes like you’ve yelled. “What happened to me…?”

Alphys lets out a sigh of relief, but she seems really scared, still.

“It s-s-should w-wear off in a f-few minutes. Um- I d-d-didn’t think your s-soul reflection w-would be that intense. Wow. H-how do you f-feel?”  
“Warm, a-and loud, and floaty? I kinda look like…” you stare into the mirror, unable to hit the right words. Sans speaks, his voice husky with relief-

“an angel, huh?”  
“. . .Well, isn’t that ironic?” you chuckle, dryly. 

At your laugh, all of the tension breaks, and they come forward. 

“Well,” Papyrus says, ever the optimist, “I think you look lovely with wings.”  
“yeah, sweetheart. not bad on you, huh?” Sans adds, grinning.  
“I guess. I kinda hate it. Um, let’s just go do some science?” you ask, wanting this to wear off as soon as possible. Though you have to admit, secretly, the wings are pretty cool. You really feel like a monster now, like you’d always wanted, and it doesn’t feel nearly as good as you thought it would. Alphys cuts in-  
“N-no, you can’t g-go through in this s-state, w-we didn’t account for that v-variable. Y-you probably just need to s-stay here until it w-wears off- just a few m-minutes.”

You sigh, resigned, and try to sit down- you’re still hovering a full foot off of the floor, like you’re sitting in a really low chair. When you try to touch the ground, you find that you CAN, but it takes full conscious effort. The moment your mind drifts off, you jump back up again. When you stand, though, you’re on eye level with Papyrus, which is the good kind of new. But now you look DOWN on Sans, which you’re surprised to find you hate.  
Sitting on your knees, you’re roughly your normal height- you honestly just need a hug after all of that crap, but you know YOU would be hesitant to hug yourself if you were, well, not you. Though, Sans comes even closer so he can see you. 

“Watch the eyes,” you tell him, “I’m pretty sure they’re flaming hot, for some reason.”  
“they always were,” he chuckles.  
“Sans…” you look down, wondering how long it’ll take for all of this to come off.  
“yup?”

You shut your eyes tight and hold your arms out a little, really needing that hug. It feels instantly comforting when he does, making sure not to touch your wings or eyes, or that strange little halo. It’s mostly reassuring that he trusts you enough to know it’s still you. As you calm down, it comes to a stop. You sink to the floor, your wings and halo fade, and you blink the red from your eyes. Then you can hug him back, for real.  
You feel filled to bursting with determination- like you could do anything if you tried long and hard enough. You stand, press a kiss on Sans’ forehead, and turn to Alphys. 

“Alright. I’m good now- let’s go.”  
“O-okay.”

She leads you back through the broken hallways and into the first room. 

“Just walk right through-” she says, confidently, “if nothing happens, it means we did it right. You should be fine.”  
“Well, alright. See you guys in a minute.” you start to walk towards the door, but Sans grabs your hand-

“at least hugs before you go,” you have to smile. You hug him, and you can feel the tremor in his bones, how scared he is for you.  
“Nothing is going to go wrong, I promise. Do you trust me?”  
“yes, but-”  
“No ‘but’s. If you trust me, then don’t worry, okay?”  
“. . .ok.”  
“There we go. When this is over, and we’re done with ice cream, I’ll let you have kisses as long as you want, all right?”  
“ok, sweetheart.”

He releases you, and you hug Papyrus- he doesn’t cling nearly as long as Sans did. His full confidence in you shines through his voice-

“Sans, don’t worry. Do what I would do! Believe in her. She will be fine, obviously. Go on, (y/n), go do, um, science!”  
“Okay!”

Alphys stops you quickly to put a wristband on your wrist- something about tracking your vitals if something goes wrong. You make a point of not saying goodbye before you go, though it’s your natural instinct. And you run right through. 

There’s a vague feeling of falling, falling really far, too. Your stomach drops, your heart skips a beat, and then it’s over. 

When you come out on the other end, it doesn’t exactly feel like another universe. It’s just a plain, white room with nothing in it but doors. Walls lined with doors. There’s a black one with red trim and angular gold doorknobs, for example, that you can recognize from Underfell a mile away. The rest are kind of difficult. One with no doorknobs, just big, metal, sliding doors. One that’s just plain black. One is a light, cheery blue. One is a thousand different colors, one is just an empty doorframe leading into darkness. You look backwards when Alphys calls in.

“(Y/n)? You okay in there? A-anything?”  
“Oh- yeah, I’m fine! Just weird in here, sorry.”  
“How d-d-do you feel?”  
“Normal. Can you guys come in here, too?”  
“Yes, just l-let us t-try shutting the d-door, okay?”  
“Yeah, sure, go ahead.”

They shut it- no change in atmosphere whatsoever. Sans and Papyrus come in next, then Alphys. 

“It is kind of plain in here- we could decorate!” Paps suggests.  
“Yeah- would that work?” you turn to ask Sans. 

He’s just shaking, eyesights little pinpricks in his sockets, grinning hollowly. You cross the room and hug him, and he hugs you back, hard, shaking and trying not to cry. 

“your numbers all dropped to zero…”  
“What?” you ask, quietly.  
“on your monitor- it all dropped to zero,” he’s crying now, but quietly enough that only you know.  
“Sans…I’m okay. I wouldn’t die on you that easy.”  
“i know…’s just…i thought for a second…”  
“I know.”  
“i love you,” he chokes on his words and you hug him tighter.  
“I love you, too.”

Papyrus comes over and hugs both of you in his long arms, and Sans swipes at his leaking eyesockets. 

“I told you everyone would be alright, there’s no need to panic,” he says. 

You notice Alphys standing awkwardly outside the hug and you beckon her in with a hand.

“C’mon, Alph, everyone gets in on this one. Celebration hugs are our specialty!” 

She smiles her little buck-toothed smile and comes over to join you. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You visit the ‘new universe’ (everyone has started to call it the “Friend Closet”, since most alternates found it by opening closet doors) maybe once or twice a week, now. Most alternates of Sans are very nice and respectful to you, so you gravitate towards hanging out with them rather than with the Papyrus-es. Most are very…aloof. Or blood-thirsty. Or dead. Or, they don’t exist in the first place. It makes you sad to see how many Sans’ there are without brothers, or without brothers who care about them, at least. 

It’s going well, though- Papyrus is now Geno’s honorary-brother, which made them both cry a little. Geno lives there, now, too, seeing as he only has a void to go home to otherwise. You’d brought in blankets for him to sleep on, and everyone brings him stuff to decorate his little corner of the room, even Red. 

You met Fresh, and he’s really not as scary as Sans had made him out to be. You really like him, actually. He calls you his “fresh-tacular homie” and loves to loudly announce this when you come into the room.

Blue is now essentially your little brother, in the same way Papyrus is your older one- but his Papyrus (or Stretch, as everyone calls him) doesn’t like it when you hang out with him too long. Something tells you that he’s just as much the protective-older-brother type as Sans was. Well, IS.

You finally got to thank Red in person for the time he spent taking care of you when you died. He visits the Friend Closet often because it’s very quickly discovered attacks don’t work there. Meaning Edge can’t beat him up much- and hand-to-hand is basically forbidden by Geno. He got really scary once, shouted, when Edge tried to knock Red over the head with his fist- “you mean EVERYTHING TO HIM, BASTARD. hit him one more time, and you’ll find out how i got how i am REAL fast.” 

Yeah, Edge had really backed down after that.

Error was downright DANGEROUS, you can tell that much, but you pity him. He’s supposedly a different version of Geno, but he’s crazy and mean. Sometimes you listen to his long, cray vents and then let out some of your own- they’re typically something like-

“Yeah, I’ve been thinking about needing to watch my weight.”  
“what about the wait for your watch?” he asks, totally unhinged.  
You pause, then say,  
“Well, you can’t wait for your watch. You don’t have the time.”  
That made him smile one of his rare smiles- you came home really proud of yourself that day. 

Science-Sans likes to go off on long rambles with you about black holes- you love it. That’s basically the extent of your friendship with him, though. He doesn’t talk much besides that.

There are a few alternates Sans has strongly warned you not to talk to- Edge, obviously, one who basically looks like Sans in a grim reaper costume who everyone calls “Death”…you can kind of understand the apprehension there. There’s one door, that kind of looks like the door to a nightclub, that everyone has agreed to lock. Nobody mentions it, but it’s there. When you ask what’s behind it, Sans blushes furiously and shakes his head-

“i guarantee ya don’t wanna know.”

There’s a Sans that drops by occasionally who everyone calls “Ink”- supposedly he made all of the alternates, and everyone respects him, but he doesn’t come around much. 

The greatest part, though? When you sing. You like to harmonize with Sans sometimes, and the whole room falls quiet when you do. Bunches of songs- Stalemate, your old favorite, a really old one called ‘Tonight You Belong To Me’, even comedy songs from the internet. You’d learned really quickly that most universes don’t have the same idea of music that you do-

“woah, that was good,” Geno says. “what was that?”  
“It’s just a song- it’s an oldie, but a goodie.”  
“it’s been a while since i heard anythin’ like that,” Red admits. You wince slightly- Angel died last week, and she’s yet to reset, poor thing.  
“Yeah…um. You guys liked it?” you ask, timidly.  
“YEAH!! THAT WAS AWESOME! CAN I TRY?” Blue says, jumping forward.  
“Sure! Um, what songs do you know?”  
“i L-O-V-E Napstabot’s songs! do you know any of those?”  
“Oh, no, I’m sorry. I think he’s just in your universe. We have Mettaton, d’you know him?”  
“Metta?” he asks, confused.  
“Yeah…but I’m assuming he’s just a ghost for you, not a huge TV star.”  
“yeah…do you know many human writers? a few albums fell down once.”  
“I love human artists, who did you find?”  
“Andy Grammar.”  
“Oh, I love him! What songs of his do you know?”  
“‘Wish You Pain’.”

Whelp, that throws you a little. It’s easily the most depressing song you’ve ever heard. Still, you sing it with him, and, MAN, can he sing. His voice can carry emotion you hadn’t thought he was capable of, and you start crying a little around the third verse. Luckily, so do most everyone else, so at least you aren’t alone. 

When it’s over, you swipe at your eyes-

“W-wow. That was really…that was the best I’ve felt in a while,” you say.  
“thank you! oh, mweh, you’re crying. i’m sorry- i have a bag of Hershey’s kisses at home if you want some.”

You laugh and politely deny the offer. Everyone is so wonderful here- you feel like the kids you always envied as a kid, the kids with huge groups of friends. And here you are, with some of the best friends you could ever ask for.

Overall, you’re happy it was all worth it in the end.  
And now you have some new friends you can look forward to seeing every once and a while. Though, as you told Sans-

“They’re awesome, sure, but they aren’t YOU. And I love you, not them. So don’t worry about them, okay?”  
“ok,” he flushes, “thanks, sweetheart.”  
“You’re welcome, bonehead.”

Fin


	22. Two Year Anniversary (What the Heck is this Chapter Though)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to my sick-ramble: it is a  
slightly nutty,  
slightly smutty,  
slightly angsty,  
milkshake-induced nightmare  
and I hope you enjoy it.

You wake Sans up this morning with a little backwards hug and a whisper-

“Morning, bonehead.”  
“mmnh- mornin’, sweetheart…” you smile- he’s such a sleepybones sometimes.   
“D’you know what today is?”  
“mm?”  
“’S been two years since I got the guts to tell you I loved you.”  
“pfft- happy anniversary, sweetheart.”  
“You too- and guess what?” He doesn’t respond but for an amused glance, so you continue. “I didn’t plan anything. We can just be lazy and stay here all day if you want.”  
“no deadly bubble flights, then?” he says, darkly.  
“No…”

He silently turns over to hug you, and you sigh a little- yeah, today isn’t exactly going to be an all-happy day. You let him hold you for a while, waiting for him to say something, before realizing he’s fallen asleep again.   
You spend the first couple hours of the morning asleep with him- if you weren’t so hungry, you might have stayed there all day. But, instead, you manage to slip away so you can make toast. You make sure to burn a slice for him, too. When he comes downstairs, he’s grinning- he has on an old NASA t-shirt and his hoodie slung over one arm. You take it and put it on, relishing how warm it is, then press a kiss on his skull-

“Thanks.”  
“no problem, hood-lum.”  
“Pfft, but you gave it to me.”  
“maybe i just needed a reason to use the pun.”  
“Well, I never said it was a bad pun, did I?”  
“was it bad?”  
“Horrible. Just the way I like ‘em.”

He chuckles, then snags the burnt toast. You turn to the door- someone is knocking from very low down, and you silently brace yourself to see Jerry. Luckily, though, it’s just Impact.

“Hey, Impact!”  
“Hello!”

You scoop him up and look around for Papyrus or Mettaton- nothing.

“Where’s Ton-Ton and Pappy?” you ask, confused.  
“At home! I came over all by myself.”  
“Do… do they know you’re here?”  
“Nope!”

He looks so proud of himself, and you laugh. 

“Well, good job, champ, but we need to call them, they’ll be worried sick about you.”  
“Oh. Sorry.”  
“It’s okay. Hey, Sans, look who came to say hi!”

You walk in carrying Impact, and Sans raises his bone-brows-

“‘sup, kid? where’s Pappy?” he asks.  
“He’s at home,” you answer, “Impact came over here by himself. Without telling anyone where he went. We probably need to call them.”  
“oh, geez, okay.” 

While Sans dials his brother, you put on some waltz music-

“Impact, do you dance?”  
“Music! Yush! Mamaton loves electric music, and Pappy loves rose music.”  
“Rose music?”  
“Yeah, when he pulls out roses!”  
“Oh, you mean latino- yeah, I did that with him once. Do you know how to do it?”  
“YES! Can we do it? Can-we-can-we-can-we?”  
“Sure, kiddo.”

You change the song and offer Impact your hands- you have to bend over quite a bit, but he can really move. He’d be great at this if he were remotely close to your height. But the fact that he can speak and walk and move so well at barely two years old surprises you. Human children don’t work this way, but you’ve never seen a monster AGE before, either, to be fair. The question is kind of pressing- will Sans or Papyrus ever age? Will ANY of your friends age?

You push the thought away for the moment as Impact tries to dip you- little goofball- you fall down on purpose, landing on one outstretched arm, so he thinks he’s done a semi-successful job. Well, even if you have to stop dancing for a second so you can get up again. 

Papyrus opens the door about halfway through the song, looking frantic. 

“Impact? Are you in here?”  
“Hey, Paps! Yeah, he’s right here,” you pick him up and pass him over- Mettaton comes in next.

“Is he here?” he asks.  
“Yes, he’s fine,” Papyrus assures him, then turns back to Impact- “Don’t run off like that again, we were worried sick about you!”   
“Sorry…” he says- “But Auntie can dance like you do, dad! She just doesn’t have roses.”

You blush a little and glance over at the kitchen table. Sans is sitting there, grinning at you.

“yeah, no roses, but she’s still got it.”  
“Sans, you’re ridiculous,” you counter, laughing.  
“i’m Sans-tasctic.”

Papyrus groans loudly, but you laugh. You’d missed this a little, the playful banter and stuff. Mettaton, ever-aware, asks-

“Well, thank you darlings. Oh, isn’t your two-year anniversary coming up soon? I have a little something for you, just tell me when you need it!”  
“Actually, it’s today!” you say, smiling. Mettaton gasps and runs off, then comes back thirty seconds later with a wrapped box in hand.

“Open it!” he exclaims. You laugh and oblige, then gasp happily- inside is a g-o-r-g-e-o-u-s dress. It’s sleeveless, fluffy, shimmering, and your favorite shade of blue. You squeal happily-

“I LOVE IT!”  
“I knew you would, I sewed it myself! Oh, try it on, please?”  
“Of course, thank you so much!”

You run upstairs to try it on- screw a lazy day, this is awesome- and it fits you perfectly, if not a little tight in the top. Though you somehow get the feeling he meant to do that. How did he get your measurements, anyway?

When you come downstairs in it, everyone has their breath held a little bit. Impact is the first to speak-

“You’re like a princess.” he says, little hands over his mouth.  
“hey, that’s my line,” Sans says, chuckling, as he looks up at you. 

His hands are in his pockets, a ridiculous grin on his face. You smile at how happy he looks and twirl around, FEELING like a princess, too. Papyrus and Mettaton scream happily as the shimmering layers of fabric swirl out. 

“It looks lovely on you!” they say, in unison.   
“Thank you! Oh, Mettaton, I love it, it’s perfect. I can’t believe you MADE this- it’s so soft I could sleep in it!”  
“Oh, thank you- it really didn’t take too long, I just saw the fabric and knew you’d love it!”

You come downstairs to hug him (as best you can, with his height), and to hug Papyrus, too. Not for any reason, just because you feel like it. 

“Well, I’m sure the two of you have romantic plans,” Mettaton says, “So we’ll have to be going. C’mon, sugarskull!”  
“Alright- goodbye, (y/n)! Goodbye, brother! I can come over tomorrow for breakfast if you two aren’t busy.”  
“we’re free,” Sans says, hugging his brother. “see ya tomorrow, bro. bye, Metta. bye, kiddo.”  
“Bye, guys! Thank you again!” you say, waving at Impact as he waddles away.

They leave, and you have to do one more happy twirl in the dress- oh, it really IS perfect. Sans whistles long and slow- how he does this without lips is a mystery to you- and looks at it, shiny and fluffy and soft.

“’s perfect, huh?”  
“Yeah, it is. Do you like it?”  
“yeah…” his face flushes the same shade as your dress, reminding you why it’s your favorite color. “it’s awesome on you, sweetheart.”  
“Aww. Oh, shoot- here, I’ll be right back.”

You run upstairs and grab his hoodie- you’d left it up there after you’d changed, no wonder you were so cold. You slip it on and step back downstairs, to find that Sans has started the waltz music up again. He extends a hand, which you take happily, twirling flawlessly around the room. You take a few hours of dancing, then, only stopping for lunch. From fast, ridiculous songs, to slow waltzes that pull the entire length of your body against his, you dance and dance until your feet start getting tired and you realize the sun is going down behind you.

It’s perfect, and happy, and suddenly you wonder what will ruin it. It’s a horrible thought, but you can’t help but wonder- something always ruins your happiest moments eventually. Hell, a year ago today you were on top of the world- and then, you died. You must seem distracted by the idea, because Sans asks-

“hey. ya good?”  
“Yeah. I’m fine, just thinking.”  
“whatcha thinkin’ about?”  
“Nothing- it’s not important.”  
“ok.”

He doesn’t press it, for now, which is a relief. The last song ends, and you crash on the couch. He sits by you, and you smile softly.

“I’m happy I met you.”  
“yeah. me, too,” he says, grinning.  
“C’mere-” you hug him and then smirk as he kisses the side of your head. Turning into it, you kiss him a little, then go in for another, and another, tilting your head at just the right angle for them. You tickle his lowest ribs under his shirt with your fingers, and he has to break away, blushing furiously and wearing a wobbly grin. 

“What? You ticklish?” you ask, poking him.  
“n-nah. not ticklish, just sensitive.”  
“Oh, really?” you say, smirking- oh, this oughta be fun.  
“don’t get any ideas,” he says, half-squinting, half-laughing.  
“We’ll see about that,” you dive in for an attack of tickles, but his eyesockets go wide, and his little wobbly grin spreads, so you hesitate. “Oh, sorry, I didn’t think-”

He snorts a little, interrupting you, but he also seems cautious. He says, slowly,

“sweetheart, just go upstairs for a sec, ’k? don’t look down. and don’t freak out.”  
“What? Why- OH MY GOD-” you nearly fly over the back of the couch- on the ground, right at your feet, is a little green garden snake, probably just looking for a warm place to hide. Of course, the little thing is harmless, but you sprint upstairs so fast Sans laughs a little. 

He scoops up the little thing in his hands, chuckling as it tries to bite his thumb, only to find bone instead of skin. 

“yeah, you can’t hurt me, little dude. sorry i gotta put’cha back outside, ’s cold out here, huh…you just wait for fall, then you can come out. for now, try Hotland. bye.”

The little snake slithers out across the ice again, and Sans shortcuts back into his room to find you pressed up in a corner of the mattress, shaking like a leaf, your eyes darting around. Your dress is all scrunched up around your waist, not looking nearly as majestic as before. He laughs-

“the danger worm’s gone.”  
“T-thank you,” you say, not moving.  
“geez, they really do freak you out, huh?”  
“Yeah. Did it bite you?”  
“tried to, but i think he broke a tooth,” he sits next to you, amused and concerned simultaneously.   
“I’m good. Just. Need a chance to breathe. You’re SURE it’s gone? There aren’t any more?”  
“yeah, you’re good. i gotcha, you aren’t gettin’ hurt by one of those on my watch.”  
“You were never much of a sentry, y’know.”  
“still. why’re you scared of snakes, anyway?”  
“I dunno- I feel like there’s a reason, but I don’t remember it. And then there’s these-”

You pull back your sock to reveal two small, white, circular scars on your left ankle. Sans touches them gently, then looks at you for an explanation- you shrug.

“I don’t know what they’re from, but they kinda look like a snake bit me, so I don’t like thinking about that much.”  
“weird- well, ’s ok. i’ve gotcha.”

He puts a hand on your back, and the motion slowly eases the tension out of you. You put your chin on your knees and ask the question you were wondering about earlier-

“So, random question.”  
“shoot.”  
“Do monsters age? I mean, I’ve seen you as a little kid from that dream and everything, right? So you had to have gotten older- but you don’t look different from when I first met you.”  
“well, there’s a theory about that- the True Age theory. the idea that every monster has an age they’re “meant to be” and even though you age beyond that point, your body won’t. i hit this,” he gestures to himself, “when i turned, like, twenty.”  
“Is that why only the younger monsters have birthday parties?”  
“yup.”  
“So…how old are you really?” you ask, suddenly a little nervous.

He shrugs-

“dunno. i’m not crazy old or anything creepy- i’m prob’ly, like, 23, at most. but i’m gonna stay lookin’ like this.”  
“Scared me for a second there, geez. Though, it is really interesting. But…there’s another thing I’ve been thinking about. So, when a person dies, they turn into those ghost things, and then, um, pass on, right?”  
“yup, think so.”  
“When you died, back then, what happened to you?”  
“the same thing. why d’ya ask?”  
“It’s just. When I died, that didn’t happen to me…I just had the option to reset, or stay in the void place. So, when I die, eventually- of natural causes or age or whatever, when I WANT to die, what’s going to happen? Will I just, reset? Or do I have to stay in that room forever, and I won’t get to move on? What will happen to me?”

He thinks for a minute- the more you think about it, the scarier it seems. You’re never going to be free of this. You’ll die, start all over, the world will just keep on resetting…or you can sit alone in that void forever and let it all happen without you. He sees you panic and his eyesights dim a little, sadly-

“i dunno. we don’t have to think about that yet. but, hey,” he tilts your chin up a little so you’ll look him in the eyes- “i’ll never blame you if you reset.”

You nod and sigh, leaning against him.

“Thanks. Sorry. Sometimes I wish I didn’t have all the reset stuff.”  
“things’d be a lot worse if you didn’t,” he says, smiling.  
“I know, but, still.”  
“yeah.”

You sit there for a second, thinking about things. Sans just wishes this didn’t have to be your burden to bear- you’re really still a kid, you aren’t even twenty just yet. And you look so alone, just staring out into space…

Suddenly, he’s jolted out of his thoughts- 

“wait…”  
“Hmm?”  
“Impact- he was a teenager in his dream…”  
“What?”  
“that’s his True Age!”  
“Sans, what are you talking about?”  
“Impact had a nightmare ages ago, he was a teenager in it, he was so much older than he is- no wonder, it must be his True Age.”  
“How do you know he was a teenager? In his dream?”  
“i dream-shared with him.”  
“Huh. Cool. What does this mean for him?”  
“nothing much, i just realized and thought it was weird, but, now i know why."  
“Good job, then, I guess.”  
“um, thanks.”  
“Yeah- thanks again for getting rid of the snake,” you say, trying to steer the conversation back to something fun. 

Well, it isn’t fun for you, but he seems to like it. You smooth your dress back down around your legs, rubbing your fingers on the soft, shimmering fabric.

“yeah- ’s ok.”

It’s not like he’d tell you or anything- but here, in the dark- that dress making you glow softly, your peaceful eyes half-lidded, night falling outside- he just wants to kiss you. So much. The longer he stares, the more he wants it, and when you turn your head to look at him, it’s more than he can stand.

“What- MMmh…”

Unable to hold back, he just leans in and kisses you, touching your hair and back and neck, wanting to make you melt a little like you always manage to make him melt. Well- it’s a success, to say the least. You lean into it, letting him have you- the tiniest little moan escapes your lips, against his teeth, and it’s all he can do not to fall to pieces when he hears it.   
You want to surprise him back- so you let one hand slip under his shirt and run your fingers over his ribs, caressing all of the little divots and nicks. He shudders, but presses closer, not wanting you to quit. As you climb higher up, you feel the warmth of his soul, then touch it gently. He presses even closer- you prod at it gently, not wanting to be too rough.   
All the while, he’s playing with you, too. He nips gently at your shoulder and lips, his hands caught in your hair or busy sending shivers down your spine. He gently tilts over until you’re top of him, but he doesn’t make a move to take it any further than that- which, you appreciate. You don’t WANT to stop, not for anything; the world could be crashing around your ears and you probably wouldn’t even notice, because everything is right here. Everything is here, in him, and in you, and in your little shivers and shocks and feelings. 

“damn, sweetheart,” he says, taking a breath of air- you smirk.  
“You started it.”  
“yeah, well,” he kisses you again, deeper, and you squeeze his soul tightly. A little thrill of magic runs through him, and he lets out a little noise against your lips, shocking you just slightly enough that you shiver.  
When you’re finally so tired you’re worried you’ll fall asleep in his arms, you break away and whisper, looking down into the endless darkness of his eyesockets-

“You really are the greatest.”  
“d-damn…” he chuckles, still a little in shock.  
“Hey, Sans?”  
“yup?”  
“I’m gonna fall asleep now. D’you mind?”  
“no, you’re fine.”  
“Please… make sure nothing bad happens, okay? I don’t wanna. You know- like last year.”

It might be the adrenaline crash making you say that, but maybe a little part of you is really scared of dying again. He wraps his arms around you and turns so you aren’t on top of him anymore- he puts his forehead against yours and whispers-

“i gotcha.”  
“I know. Thanks.”  
“no problem, sweetheart. happy anniversary.”  
“You, too. I love you.”  
“love you.”

Fin


	23. Co-Co

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This work has finally come to an end  
and it's time to start another.  
The final work in this series  
will come when I feel better.
> 
> CAUSE IIIIIII'M SICK
> 
> summary: 
> 
> Last chapter- oof.  
Kinda leaving y'all on a cliffhanger here.  
ANYWAY TRIGGER WARNING FOR IMPLIED ABUSE OF SMOL CHILD.  
enjoy!

“nnn…”  
“nngh…”  
“no..”  
“no, s…stop…”  
“stop…!”  
“STOP!” 

Sans sits straight up in bed, his left eyelight smoldering like a flame, terror grabbing at his sternum and bringing hot tears to his eyesockets.

When he looks to his left, you aren’t there- you walk in the room a minute later, after hearing him shout. 

“Hey-” you say, walking quickly across the room to sit by him. “-hey, I’m here, it’s okay.”

You come over and let him double check that you’re real, gently touching your face and feeling for your reassuring warmth. When he’s satisfied, he pulls you into a hug and chokes on his tears. You gently rub his back and let him let it out, murmuring comfortingly. Of all the things that could’ve happened while you were getting water…well, it’s not like he wants to have nightmares. 

“Shhh… it’s okay. I’m okay,” you say, trying to calm him down. But he leans away so he can look you in the eyes, and says,  
“but- it wasn’t you this time. it was…this girl…she was so little, and they were…they were…” he stops, breaking down again, and you whisper-  
“What? It’s okay, none of it’s-”  
“it IS real,” he interrupts, “it IS happening, we have to find her before they…do it again, we have to, please,” his voice is so full of pain. He just wants to fix this.  
“Sans-” you start, but he interrupts again.  
“don’t tell me it’s not real.”  
“I wasn’t going to. I was going to ask you where you think she is.”

He sighs, relieved, and stands.

“c’mon, i think i know.”   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
That was last night- after driving quickly to the surface, you’d been searching for hours. Down lonely alleyways, in old apartment complexes, even inside of boxes and garbage dumps- he seems to think she’ll be somewhere desolate, you notice. You’re determined, but even you start to suspect this was just a random, however realistic dream after a few hours. Sans is the type to give up quickly, but you see him close his eyesockets every few minutes and harden his resolve. Whatever he saw must have been REALLY awful to make him get up and move as early as he did. Finally, you sit on an overturned trashcan and look at him, bleary-eyed-

“What are we looking for, Sans?” you ask.  
“i…i don’t know, but we have to find her,” he says- “we need to check somewhere else, any ideas?”  
“If you don’t know where you’re looking, then we’ll have to sweep the whole city. C’mon, think- what do you remember?”

He closes his eyesockets again and thinks, trying to bring out every detail from his dream- or, er- not-dream. 

“the window had an old flowerpot on it. it was blue, and it had a dead plant inside,” he says, half-confident. You nod.  
“Good, so now we need to look for a building with windows. What else?”  
“it was a really small room, and it had white paint on the outside.”  
“Okay, good, anything else?”  
“um- no. i…i don’t remember.”  
“That’s alright. well, this apartment complex right here has really small rooms and white paint. See anything familiar in the windows?” You stand up next to him and scan the windows- on the top floor is a broken, filthy blue flowerpot with a dying petunia in it. You point, and he lights up.

“that’s- that’s it! i’ll be right back, sweetheart. if anything happens, run.”  
“What?”

Before you can get a word in, he turns on a heel and vanishes. You stand, look around wildly for him- but he’s long gone. You hear the sound of men shouting angrily above you in one of the rooms, and the loud tell-tale noise of a monster losing HP. Your stomach drops, but your voice freezes in your throat, and you can’t call out. Your feet seem frozen, too, unable to run like he told you to. 

Suddenly, there’s a snatch of blue and gray, a tight grip on your arm, and you’re standing on the slope of Mt. Ebott. Sans collapses in front of you, holding a small child his arms- she can’t be more than six.

“Sans?!” You say, dropping to your knees and reaching out to check his HP. He’s too weak, what if he’s dying-?!

HP: 0.5  
AT: 1  
DF: 1  
*Doesn’t care how weak he is.  
*Wants to save Co-Co.

You look down at the girl (who you assume is Co-Co) and try to gently ease her out of Sans’ arms. Her emerald eyes are wide with shock, and her hands are clutched tightly around his hoodie- she’s shaking like a leaf. She has on a way-too-big gray t-shirt, and nothing else; if you don’t count her messy mop of red hair. She has angry purple bruises around her wrists, throat, and even a black eye. Someone was definitely abusing her, you can tell. Sans tenses up and pulls her closer to his chest, so you stop trying to hold her.

“Sans, we have to get you inside- both of you- you’re too weak for this. Here, you can hold her, just give me your arm,” you offer. 

He lifts an arm, which you wrap around your shoulders, and help him to his feet. He’s too weak to shortcut now, though you know he would normally try to. That was the farthest he’s ever gone, easily- and definitely the biggest risk. He had two other souls with him, besides his! That’s incredibly magic-taxing, not to mention dangerous. So you help him up the mountain, through the barrier, and then knock on Asgore’s door, unable to bring him any farther.

Luckily, the king opens it, finally home in-between diplomatic meetings. Thank god! You sigh with relief, but Asgore jumps at the sight of Sans-

“Oh, goodness, what happened?”

He picks the short skeleton up in his huge paws, making sure to watch his precious human cargo. Sans seems surprised (borderline embarrassed) to be picked up by the king, but he doesn’t resist. Even if he wanted to, he’s too fragile for it right now, anyway. You follow him into the throne room, with the buttercups, where Asgore sits Sans on the throne and turns to you sternly.

“What happened to him? And this human child? She looks positively torn to pieces.”

Sans chuckles weakly-

“heh, heh. paws-itively.”

Asgore’s face softens slightly at that, but he still waits for your answer. You explain briefly about the nightmare and the searching, and the apartment, and the shortcut. Sans listens to you, but he’s staring down at the girl, who is starting to cry a little bit. Asgore nods solemnly, then crouches in front of him.

“Is what she says true?”  
“yup.”  
“And you’re sure you rescued this human, and did not kidnap them?”  
“well, let’s ask the kid. kiddo, did you wanna be rescued, or do we need to bring ya back?”

The child shakes violently and shakes their head ‘no’. 

“‘no’? d’you wanna go back?”  
“n-no,” she whispers- you notice she’s a lowercase speaker, just like Sans. “p-please no.”  
“well, there we go, your highness.”

Asgore seems satisfied.

“Sans, please tell me what you see when you Judge the human, and check their stats. Then I will help to get you home.”

Sans tenses up when he Judges her, and gently checks her, too.

“her soul is green and black- Kindness and… and Fear. she’s innocent, but she’s had some rough things happen to her. she has one attack point, one defense point, like me. one outta ten HP. we need to let her rest- we can bring her to Paps, he’s good at healing.”  
“Yes- soon. But not yet: listen. I trust you, Sans. I really do. You raised Papyrus essentially by yourself- you know how to care and protect someone. But if word of this gets out, humans will inevitably use it as an excuse to tighten regulations around monsters even further. I would know. So take good care of her. And do not bring her to the surface until she is older, and things have cleared up.”“what? like, adopt her? forever?” he asks, a little shocked.  
“Well, what was your original plan? Or did you not have one?” he stands up to his full height and looks down at Sans.  
“…i guess i didn’t have one,” he says, sheepishly.  
“She is your responsibility now. Let’s get you home.”

The shock of the thing hits you full-swing. You have a kid now- and you have to keep her. You look at Sans, at the shaking child. Asgore says he will give Sans a few minutes to rest and breathe before the journey home, and leaves the three of you alone in the throne room.

“Co-Co?” you ask, quietly. The girl glances up at the name, wide-eyed. “Is that your name?”

She pauses, then says, timidly,

“used to be. they changed it.”  
“Do you want us to call you Co-Co?”  
“w-will you?”  
“Of course, if you want,” she nods, and you give her a reassuring smile. “Co-Co it is, then. My name is (y/n).”  
“ok…are you the police?”  
“No. Why do you ask?” you ask, confused.  
“they said someone might try to take me, the police. and if i went with the police, they’d hit me a lot. i don’t want to…to get hurt…are you the police?”

You feel tears push behind your eyes- whoever had her last…was despicable. You look at Sans, and he’s trying to blink the yellow-blue flame out of his eye. He’s ANGRY, you can see it from here- but he has to cool off if he wants to reassure her. You decide not to try to explain everything to her right now- 

“No. We’re not. And nobody is going to hit you here, not ever, okay?”  
“. . .why?”  
“Because hurting people is wrong.”

She’s quiet. You look at her angry, puffy black eye, at her scrapes and bruises- and you just want to bundle her up until you know she’s safe. Sans looks across at you, softening a little. You whisper softly-

“Is this what I was like when I fell down?”  
“no,” he says. (What he doesn’t mention is that you were worse.) You look back down at Co-Co.

“when am i going back?” she asks, quietly.  
“Never, if you don’t want to.” you assure her. 

She starts to cry a bit more, and Sans pulls her closer, letting her bury her little head in his hoodie. 

“hey, kiddo, ’s ok. we gotcha, huh? we’re gonna getcha home, clean you off, and try to fix you up. you like spaghetti?”  
“*sniff* mm-hmm.”  
“well, my bro is the best at making it. you can have as much as you want.”  
“r-really?”  
“yup.” Her little face lights up.  
“wow,” she says. “wow.”

Asgore comes back in and asks if you’re ready to leave. You look at Sans questioningly, and he nods. Carefully helping him to his feet off of the tall throne, you give him a one-armed hug. He needs your help to walk at such low levels of HP, but he holds it together for Co-Co.

She seems astounded at the sight of the Underground, but you can’t help but notice how quiet she is. Like she thinks if she speaks a word, it will all end. Sans notices, too, because he asks,

“cool, huh?”

She just nods. You smile at her- when she sees it she hides her face in Sans’ shirt. She really seems to trust him. You’d think she’d at least be a little hesitant to be scooped up by a monster and brought away from the only home she’d ever known, however horrible… but she seems borderline peaceful.

The rest of the day flies by in a blur- Papyrus comes and heals Sans, (and brings spaghetti) but Co-Co proves to be a bit more of an issue. When Papyrus reaches out to put a hand on her back, she shrinks back, eyes wide and scared. He sighs sadly and looks to his brother for help. Sans gently strokes her hair-

“hey, ’s ok. he’s not gonna hurtcha,” he says. “look. he just did it to me, i’m better. it doesn’t hurt.”

She tentatively sits up and lets Papyrus get rid of most of the bruises and scrapes on her skin, but she refuses to leave Sans’ lap.

Yeah, that’s the common thread. She refuses to do anything without Sans nearby, holding his hand at the very least. Finally, when you come to the roadblock of cleaning her off, you give up. Eventually she’ll learn not to be by his side every waking moment, but until then it’s a lost cause. Sans tucks her in gently to Papyrus’ old race-car bed, and you hear her ask-

“where are you going?”   
“i’m goin’ to bed, kiddo.”  
“but…don’t you want…aren’t you going to…” she drifts off.  
“going to what?” he asks, softly.  
“nothing. never mind,” she pulls the covers up to her nose and stares at them.  
“ok,” he relents, “i’m right down the hall if you need me- try to get some sleep. night, kiddo,” he turns to go, but she asks quietly,  
“night…um…what’s your name?”  
“oh- i never told ya, did i? Sans. Sans the skeleton.”

He shoots her one of his signature grins, genuine and happy and real. She smiles against the covers, then mumbles,

“night, Sans.”  
“g’night, kid.”

When he steps out of Papyrus’ room, he makes sure to crack the door so a little bit of light from the hallway can get inside. You hold out your arms when he turns to face you, and he hugs you tightly.

“she’s so hurt. her soul is so scared of everything…god, whoever had her before-” he tenses up angrily and you rub little circles on his back until he relaxes again.  
“I know. It’s okay. We can do this… it just happened so fast.”  
“i never asked you if you were ok with this, huh?”  
“It’s not like there’s a choice. She’s ours now, we can’t bring her back up there, give her back to them. I… that would be horrible.”  
“yeah. i’m so sorry if this isn’t what you wanted.”  
“Bonehead,” you you pull out of the hug enough to look into his eyesockets- “I want to help her as much as you do. It was unexpected, but that doesn’t mean I hate her or anything.”

His eyelights dim, but he smiles wobbily and hugs you again.

“she reminded me too much of you…i couldn’t just leave her.”  
“I know. Shh… it’s alright. I’m okay, she’s okay.”  
“i love you, sweetheart.”  
“I love you, too, bonehead.”

The rest can wait for tomorrow.

Fin


End file.
